Deity Gliese #4, Wang Kon of Korea

Round 1, 4000 BC - 3640 BC (9 turns).

Ok since I'm back on civfanatics and are not running any online games at the moment I've decided to have another go.
Now some of you may remember that I have a less than perfect track record both in winning and completing the deity challenges I've posted so far. I've got a couple of offline deity wins under my belt but I still consider myself a deity noob all things considered so I'll continue in the school of hard knocks and perhaps get some advice and insights along the way to help me improve. As for completing the challenge, well I'll promise as always to try my best but all routine micro and no new game makes Gliese a dull boy, at least dragon age is another 2 months down the road.

Any input is welcome but I ask that no spoilers are posted unless I've already reached that stage in the game myself.

The leader for this game is Wang Kon of Korea with starting techs Mysticism and Mining, here are the settings:



I decided to go ahead and nerf myself a little by enabling huts and events again. It's a nice crutch to disable them now and then on the top levels but variety is a necessary spice of an enjoyable game. Not visible in this shot is the type of tectonics map, I'm playing on a 60% water map. I like the tectonics script but it's often a very tight squeeze to grab 6 cities before the AI, let's just hope it's not Gilgamesh next door or this might be a quick game.

The start, after moving the warrior:



Corn, clams, gems and dyes, why do I always get such crappy starts? Seriously though this is the first start I got and though I would sometimes reroll this on a lower level I'm not going to handicap myself on deity, I leave that to the pros.
The warrior was moved for maximum scouting since I anticipated settling in place and indeed revealed another hut. Normally I'd allow for some input here before continuing but I honestly don't see what's to discuss so I'll settle and start on worker+ agriculture and play a couple of turns before calling it a round. Update to follow.

Round 1, 4000 BC - 3640 BC (9 turns):

4000: SIP, revealing another clam and a gem in 3rd ring to the south. Hut is popped for 45 gold.



As discussed in the OP, I started on Agriculture + Worker. There is actually one alternative here which is working dye while trying for a religion. I opted not to since it would cost me in production and I might miss anyway. As mentioned, tectonics maps are often crowded and any lost turns developing on deity can be very costly in the long term. Besides, the gems gives me a decent shot at getting a religion in a later stage.

3960: Warrior pops the second hut netting 30 gold.

3800: Warrior pops a third hut netting another 42 gold for 117 total.

3640: One turn from completing Agriculture. I end the round to allow for some discussion.



So far a food-poor land to the east but there are a few good resources at least, ivory is awesome, did someone just mention hwacha's + war elephants in another thread? Stone gives some interesting possibilities with a protective leader. Hugging the coast initially might be a better idea with the gems to the south though, further exploration is of course needed.

What about techs? There's certainly both fishing and BW to consider and perhaps others as well, I'm leaning toward BW with all the forest around although there wont be any BFC copper.
Archery needs to be a fairly high priority on this map of course.
The gems allow for some good teching so there's a possibility of snagging judaism depending on if there's a religion hog or not out there, The Oracle is also a possibility, especially if there's lots of room (read time) to expand. This doesn't look like a GLH map thus far but it's a wonder I always think about at least in passing with a coastal start. Pottery is of course a key tech with a financial leader and river start.
Any thoughts?

I probably dont know enough to make a logical conclusion on your next city placement, buit perhaps 1 NW of the northern ivory would be good. The river, if i recall, would connect your cities right away, and that would give you 4 plots to have irrigated farms, and immediately have 1 of the 2 ivories in your borders, with the other one being obtained after your first border expansion. The hills/ivory would also be an excellent source of hammers.

I would have gone with fishing first while working the corn tile to grow the capital because the financial trait makes the clams better. But anyway, with the worker out, it looks like going BW - Fishing - Hunting - Archery would be best for now.

EDIT: Nope no way lol

Did you consider Fishing ahead of Ag? After Fishing then mining? This would allow you to get the seafood and gems on line faster which is doubly valuable being financial. You could then have done warrior rather than worker first and explore faster. I am an emperor not deity player so I am very interested in your advice.

the tile one left of the warrior would be a decent location for a blocking/resource grab city if you got it a monument asap.

It's never going to be a great city but the wheat lets you work the elephants and the stone for some decent production and will be able to spit out units in pretty good order.
Elephants and stone are obviously both resources worth making an effort to grab.

I'd settle that city first and then use it as a pivot to determine the placement of the next blocking city after you've done some more scouting.

If the game ever comes to sushi then it's going to make a great ironworks city but that's probably looking a bit far ahead.

I will be following this thread with interest.

DMOC said:

I would have gone with fishing first while working the corn tile to grow the capital because the financial trait makes the clams better.

Click to expand...

Not even close. Riverside corn is much, much better.

Hm, looks like I made a silly mistake...I must have been thinking of TWO clams together...

Wow lots of input already.

As for fishing vs agriculture, I agree with Rusten that riverside corn trumps financial clams. I would have gone for ag even with just an irrigated corn, remember that one 6 food source gives the same surplus as two 4 food sources. I would probably have gone for fishing first if It was a riverside rice though.
The extra commerce from clams being financial is great and I would have used a workboat on it before a ocean fish, losing a food but gaining a turn and +2 net commerce per turn. This can be good even without financial, especially if you start with bad techs (like tw/myst or hunt/myst) and need a research boost.

As it is, my worker will improve the corn then the gems which is the fastest way to get the latter online while keeping a good food surplus. We already have mining but even had we not there would have been time to tech it before the worker must improve it. Having mining however enables quick BW for virtually no downtime for our industrous little worker (which is why it's the best starting tech).

The wheat stone ivory block might be a good idea depending on where I find neighbours. There's lots of mountains around so there might be some nifty chokes to exploit in this regard. Grabbing the other gem tile quickly before a jungle grows there could also prove a decisive move.

A possibility I didn't mention before is getting TGW. Often with coastal starts that can be redundant but if we get a large map with few neighbours (especially if we're semi-isolated with only one opponent) then it could be a good idea. WK starts with myst and mining so masonry is a cheap tech and there are plenty of forests around. Certainly the hilly and mountaineous terrain to the east is a first rate barb spawning-pool since it's a mess to fogbust.

Stone means overflow whipping / chopping, beeline masonery and rex while letting financial + overflow whips from walls carry you through to wherever you are going!

Good luck Gliese 581 (also been waiting for Dragon Age for 5 years ).

As for techs I would probably go BW, Hunt, Arch, Wheel, Pot need to see more land first though. Look to chop out the early units/workers/settlers. Probably farm dye rather than go for fish. It looks like you might have quite a bit of room to expand into so fogbusters are a must. Pro archers are great for this as you can get some uber archers early (obv warriors where there is now real danger of them dying).

P.S remember I've still to win at deity (not that I play many) so any advice from me might not be the best.

Corn, clams, gems and dyes, why do I always get such crappy starts?

Click to expand...

If the 'General' BtS forum members read that, they'll be screaming how overpowered this is. Because gems is ZOMG!!! That's a guaranteed win right there.

Must have Gems....

obsolete said:

If the 'General' BtS forum members read that, they'll be screaming how overpowered this is. Because gems is ZOMG!!! That's a guaranteed win right there.

Must have Gems....

Click to expand...

I won a game without gems once.

It wasn't pretty.

Sleepless said:

Good luck Gliese 581 (also been waiting for Dragon Age for 5 years ).

As for techs I would probably go BW, Hunt, Arch, Wheel, Pot need to see more land first though. Look to chop out the early units/workers/settlers. Probably farm dye rather than go for fish. It looks like you might have quite a bit of room to expand into so fogbusters are a must. Pro archers are great for this as you can get some uber archers early (obv warriors where there is now real danger of them dying).

P.S remember I've still to win at deity (not that I play many) so any advice from me might not be the best.

Click to expand...

Heh me too, been on the DAO forums since late 2004 and drooling ever since. To much spoilers there these days though, I'm afraid of going there now. By the way, did you read about the delay? I saw it just a couple of hours ago, they're delaying the game to 2nd half of this year.
But to get back to the game..

I've pretty much decided on BW next. No fishing after? Well corn + gems still leaves 5 food surplus which is ok, early pottery would of course be great. Normally I'd not want to delay archery beyond 4th tech but there are two things I'm pondering here.
First, there's gems so delaying archery to 5th (after fishing) should not delay it very much.
Second there's TGW to consider. You make a very good point about the need to fogbust this land with some protective archers which is antagonistic to building WBs. The wall however would completely change the equation.
I'm actually tempted to go for it this time if there are no close neighbours I want to block asap. It could save me alot of hammers in the long run and perhaps even net a gspy for infiltration/midgame tech steal party.

If we have less space however, there will be less need for fogbust, more need to block quickly, less expansions overall which means faster writing which is antagonistic to generating a gspy. A gspy is of course also less appealing with 2 or more neighbours.
I might put in another short round here just to see where this is headed. I'm on the fence on quick/slow expansion at the moment depending on the map.

whoa, finally you got a decent start(ok, actually a rather good one )

no advices, as I have no clue about tectonics(never played it). But 1 gem + 3 3c tiles means rex harder(at least on marathon, probably normal has less impact for financial) + forests for chopping + stone with pro for additional cash. Happy cap at 7 - less pros for monarchy. Archery seems interesting as obviously you don't have anything else in starting bfc.

usually I go partially priest econ. with stone, but frankly wang doesn't have any +s for running a priest econ.

Round 2, 3640 BC - 825 BC (The end):

So as you might have figured from the title above, this one didn't go very well.

3600: Ag -> BW. Hindu FIDL (I would have missed it).

3400: Worker->Warrior, sart improving corn. Buddhism FIDL.

3360: Meet SB, unfortunately I can't see his unit and have no idea where he might be coming from.

3240: Warrior dies to barb archer in the south.

3040: BW -> Masonry. I thought for some time about this but I figured there was a chance of being semi-isolated with SB and figured I had a little extra time for expansion, the spy points would also come in handy if there were to be no tech trades. So I went for TGW.

2920: SH BIDL. Forest fire, I pay 10 gold.

2840: Masonry -> Hunting, I still need archery for exploration and fogbust and camps for the ivory. I immediately start on TGW and begin chopping.

2760: I find out I'm not semi-isolated after all, Saladin is to the north.



2680: Hunting -> Archery.

2480: Archery -> Fishing. With 3 turns left on TGW I switch to slavery to shave a turn, any turn saved on this project on deity is a must.

2400: TGW is completed after whipping. I finish the warrior in queue then start on an archer.

2320: Fishing -> TW. Finish archer start on WB.

2120: TW -> Pottery. Judaism FIDL.

2000: Meet Shaka's scout coming from the north. Oh my..

1960: Largest civs are displayed. Shaka is going nuts as usual in this department.



1920: Pottery -> AH. I decide to go AH for the cows to the south and to look for horses. It turns out SB is close and he steals the stone. So now I'm thinking TGW was a bad idea after all. Still I've got ivory and stellar research so I have a good shot at war eles + hwacha war to expand even though I lose some spots.



1720: AH -> Writing. After 3rd archer I 3pop-whip a settler.

1600: Make contact with Saladin's WB from the north, he is hindu founder.

1560: Found my 2nd city. Oracle BIDL (Saladin). I thought about settling 1S for faster access to the food but this gives +1 prod and hooks up the ivory faster for the capital. It also blocks more thoroughly.



1480: Writing -> Aesthetics. Saladin got Alphabet this turn so I look for the classic trade tech.

1360: OB with SB to scout his lands, now looking at invading him from 4 cities or so with elephants and hwachas.

1320: SB converts to hindu.

1280: SB slips through my late block to steal a decent spot.



1200: Meet Washington from south of SB's lands.

1080: Confu FIDL.

1040: Shaka is WHEOOHRN. SB's been his worst enemy for some time, I check status again. Yep still is, so I hope for the best (in vain).



950: I found my 3rd city to get the 2nd gem and share the cow with Pyonyang.



925: Oh noes..



900: Aest -> Alpha. I put in research in Alpha to trade for it with Saladin. Shaka DOWs, he has another impi right behind the stack above. I have little hope of weathering this with 1 defensive unit per city, a warrior in Seoul to top it. I play a couple of more turns though just to make sure.

875: Meet Cyrus, founder of confu.

850: Trade Aest for Alpha with Saladin. Trade aest for IW with Washington. Trade Aest for poly+sailing with Cyrus.

825: Seoul is attacked by Shaka, I have 2 archers and a warrior there now but it is not enough despite being protective (bad rolls?). I decide to quit here.



So some bad luck here. I could have claimed the copper and stone instead of the great wall though and maybe this would have been different, my archers would have a hard time preventing the gems being pillaged even if they could hold the cities. I guess I got a bit greedy. Well then, time for the next game.

That's one of the shortest Wangs I have ever seen

Kudos for posting about it in public. Deity truly is hard.

ParadigmShifter said:

That's one of the shortest Wangs I have ever seen

Kudos for posting about it in public. Deity truly is hard.

Click to expand...

Indeed it was.
Well I don't play these games ahead of time and as I said, I'm still a deity noob. That's why I lose most of the games even with good starts such as this one. Of course early Shaka dow with no strategic resource would be a pain with any start.

Don't worry about stuff like that (almost anyone would lose). Play another game and hope this time Sitting Bull is BETWEEN you and Shaka.

Why didn't you send your archers to Seoul? There's no point in them guarding safe cities. Even at the point of the screenshot it should be salvageable--you should end up with 4 archers and a warrior, but couldn't you have had some archers already as well? Did you forget to check Shaka for WHEOOH?

Anyway, better luck next time.