The Ultimate Deity Challenge -- Survival among Warmongers

Both times I had an early dow by Shaka/Monte at the same time which was easy to deal with. Usually Alex or Rag would join in as well in one of the wars. I found the trouble came in the second war when facing cats. Although I had drill IV units by then it didn't seem much good with 2 or 3 deity stacks attacking you.

Its definitely a fun game so will try again (very quick ). I have a plan for my next attempt which might work (probably not though .

The other problem without the Dow's is having Gil as a very close neighbour. Any city you try and build to the South gets swamped by his culture at least his not to violent. At least that was what I was finding.

I'll be very interested to see how other people get on.

Tech path: Aggri, mining, AH, myst, hunting, BW, HBR, archery, writing, sailing, pottery, masonry, poly.
There was horses in capital but even if there wasn't, archery usually isn't needed on deity Pang for barbs.

Build: Worker, 3x warrior, settler, worker, worker, settler, worker.

2320BC - Settled Osaka near Shaka's border. Settled on plain hill grabbing corn+gold.

1640BC - Settle Tokyo 2N/1E of the capital. Grabbing sheep, sharing pigs with capital.
Since there was horses in the capital, I decided HA rush would be a good idea. The way I settled I have only room for 4 decent cities, which is a bit low.

950BC - Hinduism spreads and I convert to it. Monty, Shaka and Gilg are hindu and my closest neighbors.

825BC - Alex wants to trade maths for HBR+40 gold, I accept his offer since he's the only one w/o HBR.

750BC - I dow Shaka. He is the weakest target and is at war with GK. This is my first game with BUG and for some reason I can see Shaka and Monty are at war with GK even though I haven't met GK yet ..



Stack of 12 HA's isn't that impressive but I scouted Shaka's cities and they are weakly defended, probably because his war with GK. So I decided now is the time to strike.

Another thing to note is the iron source you can see 2S/1E of the HA's. I will pillage this asap.

725BC - Ulundi is defended by 2 sword, 1 axe, 1 archer. As I said, his cities looked weakly defended so this should be a pushover war. Obviously I capture it.

675BC - Alex dows Gilg. Now this is unlucky because if Alex had dowed Gilg before I dowed Shaka, I would've attacked Gilg. This would've been more profitable because: Gilg is a big AI, he has very nice land and it would be 3v1 war.

575BC - Capture Umgun, once again it was rather weakly defended. Also I get a GG and make a medic.

475BC - Capture Nobamba. Only 4 units defending.

450BC - Taoism founded by someone, ouch.

425BC - I had to decide between Alph+IW for peace or capture Shaka's last city. I decided to capture it because that will get me room for 8 cities and the possibility to unlock Forbidden palace. (or do you only need 6 on pang? I'm not sure )

Here's where I stopped playing. As you can see it was 5am when I stopped. One ... more ... turn ...






Now some input from the community would be helpful since I'm undecisive about specialisation.

- Kyoto: Lots of hills and enough food to work them. However there's only 5 grasslands to cottage. The best option imho is to work the food resources+cottages+gold and run scientists instead of working hills.

- Tokyo: Not really sure about this one. Either I do the same as for kyoto, work food+grassland cottages+scientist. Or which I would prefer, work sheep+grassland+plain cottages.

- Osaka: Same problem as Tokyo. Hills and few grassland.

- Ulundi: With the 2x silk and 5 grassland it should be a pretty decent cottage city.

- Umgun: Once again, there is few room for cottages. What I could do is farm and run scientists here since it has pretty good food.

- Nobamba: Now here is where it gets tricky. Either I put NE and later in the game WS here. Which means Oxford+IW in the capital.
OR I put GT here for prot/agg gunpowder drafting. Which means I need another city for NE, the best choice would be GL+NE in capital. The problem here would be I can't get IW in the capital then.
OR I build GT+NE in Nobamba but I will cripple the GP farm with future drafting then and I prefer to have a NE+WS GP farm.
I am leaning strongly towards the first option and just ignore GT.

Advise and opinions are welcomed.


Future approach: Get aest/lit, build GL in capital or Nobamba, Parthenon in Osaka or Ulundi and maybe build Swedagon as well for early pacifism. Eventhough I'm silently cursing at all the hills, they will prove useful to grab these wonders.

After Aest-lit, I need to do some trading and backtracking. With GL+NE+Parth+Pacifism the GS's should come pretty fast, which ensures good lib bulbing. Plan is to bulb phil, paper and 2x edu. This gives me some breathing room to backtrack techs.

The game looks pretty good at this stage, the only thing I'm afraid of is that Monty or Gilg will become too big by war or vassals.

You found the weakest part of this map, Shaka does not have copper. Excellent feeling to DOW an aggressive AI first before he does so.
You have not see the last AI, who in my game, the strongest one.

With aggressive AIs nearby, you have to keep in mind that survival is the most important thing you have to consider for a long time. So I don't try to settle faraway blocking city for land, instead I would settle satellite cities for defense and aim to settle on hill. A compact empire is not only for easier defense and less chance for earlier DOW, but also for lower maintenance. Although those aggressive AIs' tech rates are relatively slower, you still need those military techs up as quick as possible.

I settled in place. Huts popped a scout and Mining. Barbs are not a problem in this kind of crowd map. I settled my 2nd city pretty late mainly because I am afraid of early border contact before I have defense force ready and also there is no great city site nearby. So 2nd city on plain hill to grab the Marble/Ivory and last fifth city for none resource but for western border defense. The first war occurred in 1840BC between Monty and Gilgi (great news, I only need to watch for Shaka at the moment) and I received the second one from Shaka shortly after he had a few of offensive units ready (Shaka does not have copper). To save the unit maintenance cost, I did not build too many units before DOW, however I did prechopping and saved some overflow hammers for emergent situation (I have not adopt slavery yet). In the turn Shaka's SOD entered my land, I only have one archer guarding Osaka. However 2 turns later when shaka is ready to attack, he will be facing 4 archers already.

Empire



Tech: Agri->AH->BW->Pottery->Writing->Mys->Hunting->Archery->Masonry->Aes->Currency



I tried to research all those cheap techs myself since only Gilgi is a reliable tech trade partner before you can please other AIs to friendly.

The key is obviously attacking Shaka. Early on in the game you should beeline the Western Gold City. In my game Shaka beat me to it, hurt my research a lot early on.

I'd also recommend Monarchy instead of Aesthetics. For some reason none of the AI in my game had it when I got Aesthetics... I could only trade for like Alphabet. But the HR bonus is also hugely important, if I could have gotten it up sooner it might have saved me. I was also really annoyed that I didn't get the major religion early on; it simply would not spread in my lands (Buddhism), and probably also killed my diplo.

Gilgamesh seems to be a powerhouse - if you get him happy with you and kill Shaka you've probably got the game wrapped up. In my game unfortunately he was the one who DOW'd me, and then unbelievably, fought off me, Shaka, AND Genghis (that's right, 3 on 1 against him!). He somehow beat everyone to lbows, xbows, maces, you name it - I'd see Zulu and Mongol stacks go into his land and disappear, and I couldn't make progress either. So if I was to try again I'd use civic+religion bonus on Gilga, while feeding off of Shaka's lands to get stronger.

Early on I explored the aforementioned city. But shaka beat me to it; I settle Osaka in a not-as-great spot (did steal the gold for a while at least)




I guess I missed the DOW in screenshots but Gilga took Tokyo (SE of Kyoto). He never would make peace either (I missed a chance all the way later at education but the game was really over then). Here's my little empire I was defending (I had my main stack over by Shaka's city I think, hoping to pick it off if Gil took it...)



I did keep up in tech alright, bulbed philo (second person to get it) and edu. I even got a free Feudalism from Shaka (we have huge mutual struggles bonus).





Still Earthling the Hopeless though....



I finally resigned when Gilga was still sending stacks into my territory - could hold out a little longer but it would do no good in the end (also Alex DOW'd on me).



I'm still amazed Gilga survived against the three of us, especially in the mid game war. Shaka and Genghis seemed to spend forever trying to bombard cities but never attacked them (and I couldn't take all his xbows/lbows on my own). But really I was behind from the start when I missed settling a better second city, Kyoto is a really beast bureau cap with settled GG's but it still wasn't enough. Oh yeah, I also got about the most worthless quest ever for Toku - building Swordsmen. I finished about when I got samurai anyway, couldn't build swords so none of that city raider, and Free Drill 1 for melee units... In my mind though I still beat Dan Quayle

Beating Shaka to the western Gold city needs luck and is not necessary. Actually, even if I can, I still hesitate to go for it since I am afraid of his attack early on (you don't know whether he has copper before Writing. I don't fear one DOW but not two). With gold in capital BFC, I have never fall behind in tech race even with small empire. My conclusion of CIV4 is that leading the tech is everything and this is fueled by mastery of Diplomacy.

My intention of presenting this game is how to defense when you know there are invasions early on, the only situation that I love protective trait, but not an early offensive war (this is another skill).

I think even if you know the map, it is still a challenging game.

Shaka started his attack 3 turns later with some reinforcement and did not put a single casualty to my 5 guarding archers. A few turns later, he (actually it is monty added the last few GG point) devoted my first GG (I settled him by mistake which prevented me from opening the HE) and was willing to make peace for giving me 60 gold. Monty was in WHEOOHN mode turns ago and I found that his SOD was parking on the border city with Gilgi, so I was sure he would go for Gilgi. He demand most of my treasure during this period and I declined. As my thought, Monty DOW Gilgi again and interestingly he also DOW me the next turn. Now I learned another thing, AI will consider DOW a second target in WHEOOHN mode. The environment became better for me when Shaka and Alex were bribed to join the war (Luckily I am not their target). Another interesting thing is that Ragnar were pleased to everyone, which left me his only available target and he did not DOW me until now (I could not see whether he is in WHEOOHN mode). I remember that when I tried the same setting in immortal, Ragnar DOW me twice from far away.

400BC



1AD





Tech: Pol->Lit->Drama->Music->Priesthood->CS

I am going to start my 1st golden age with the free GA and did all the civic changes and convert to Bud club. I am pretty safe from this point as long as Ragnar have not had a war plan.

I tried this a third time and ended up getting boxed in earlier than ever. So it got put on hold for a while. Not been attacked yet though Monte is WHEEOH, The main trouble it is pot luck if you get declared on very early. If Monte attacks Gilga/Rag first it should be possible to tech constr/hbr and take out Shaka with we/cats (at least that was my plan). Early Hbr/Const is essential if you get attacked early. Facing 2/3AI in the BCs with cats even 3 GG archers don't help (thats what happened in the second game built the GW for extra GG points) so you must have a way of defeating there cats. So HA for flank damage and cats for general stack damage seems to me the way to go.

Not sure how Burn managed to get that gold city though.

The obvious solution looks to be rushing Shaka and claiming that land and those useful resources. Our starting capital is more than good enough for a chariot rush. (At least I think so from what I remember of the map)