Dingding’s Deity Challenge – Gandhi: India’s Conquest

obsolete said:
Udey, from reading your post I suspect this was not deity. I'm not sure how deep to go into that since this is a deity thread and I don't want to de-rail or de-value the OP's own thread.

However, I did quickly run another test this evening. I threw in a gold resource with WB. I also traded off fidelity a little bit to increase GPPs. This put us at exactly a 50/50 proposition to hit the Eng at 1600 BC.


P.S.

1600 BC = Won Mids race for us on this map.
Click to expand...

Sorry for any sloppyness as it's from a phone but yes this was on deity and non HoF map (can post save later).I am interested in your tech path for your OMP and if you are only attempting it with certain leaders. I can PM you later if you want to not derail the thread. Guess I should post on the forums more.
 
RRRaskolnikov said:
Hi :hatsoff:,

Wouldn't it be better to NOT grab as many religions as you can (maybe you are blessed with Shaka, Toku, and Monty on the other continent -well blessed is a big too strong :D - maybe there are all trading having the same religion)?

edit: I realized that after oracling COL, delaying philo might not be good as you have a really focused economy, but i wonder what you think about it.
Click to expand...

I'm not delaying Philo, but Philo is after Maths and Alphabet in the bulbing list. I have to finish the both to unlock Philo.

There are pros and cons for a religion-messy situation on the other continent:

Pros:
1) More chance of wars;
2) Less tech trades;

Cons:
1) Chance to see a giant who has two vassals when you meet him (the worst situation)
2) Complicated diplo with them: very easy "You've traded with our worst enemy!" -4 for a simple open-border!
 
dingding said:
About the probability of a project, to Artichoker:
If it’s only the 80/20 probability thing that disturbs you, the explanation will be much easier.

I’ve tried some Deity conquest NO S/L games and won several of them, so I have a lot of experience about how to evaluate the risk and return. As you know, sh*t happens in Civ: you may lose a 99.99% battle or win a 0.01% one. Does it mean that I would never dare to launch a war because I may, despite all, lose a 99.99% battle, or that I should DoW a neighbor with only initial warrior because I can capture his capital with a probability of 0.01%? Obviously not.

With the experience of NO SL Deity games, I find if a plan works at a probability of 80%+ in Deity, it’s already a nice one: it’s not far more dangerous than an early dice-roll DoW by a neighbor. And you can consider carrying it out.

If a plan seems workable at 80%+ in Deity and it’s a DIFFERENT one, I strongly recommend that you give a try. I mean if you lose due to it, please note that it’s just a game; but if you win it, you may find a totally different way of thinking and playing.

Risk exists everywhere, and 20% of failure is acceptable in Deity. I admit the luck effect in Deity and in this game, but I don’t think people should criticize too much the 80% thing and ignore other things which are far more valuable.
Click to expand...

I think you missed my point.

True...risks exist in many places in the game, but that point does not lessen the fact that the Oracle gambit adds additional risk to the game. Take the basic REX strategy, for example. Following that strategy instead of the Oracle gambit would not require the 80% dice roll that your plan required. Granted, there are many other risks that need to be taken in the remaining part of the game, but these will be present in both strategies. The main difference, however, is the initial 80% risk that you needed to take to get the plan started in the first place.

And this is not to criticize the general strategy of building wonders...normally you can get a good amount of :gold: for failing a wonder, and this is often useful especially when you have production bonuses for the wonder. But in this situation, the extra :gold: will be worth very little.
 
Sadly I've got nothing to contribute to a deity strategy discussion. But since I recently bulbed philosophy, I want you to share my recent dilemma ;-)

Isn't a game about taking chances? :rolleyes:
 
Agramon said:
Sadly I've got nothing to contribute to a deity strategy discussion. But since I recently bulbed philosophy, I want you to share my recent dilemma ;-)

Isn't a game about taking chances? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

True...but you also want to minimize the number of times that you need to take chances, unless you can significantly improve your result for the favorable outcome branch with the more risky choice.
 
DingDing,

Very thorough analysis, I enjoy and appreciate the depth of your report which really incorporates more dimensions of the game and long-term vision.

You are very lucky William gave you until 14xxBC to settle the Gems although they are right next to his border, If i were in your situation, I would settle the gems as the 2nd city instead of the 3rd. Also if you start seeing Willam's galleys, would you close border to prevent him settling your back yard.

If I were to continue my game, I have several cities with seafood resources, i intend to farm them and run scientists in multiple cities for GS while focusing capital on cottages. There are a lot of potential what 9 cities with prime grass land can generate once the infrastructures are whipped.
 
The more religions you get though, the slower the deity AI on the other side of the world gets to culture.

Allowing the AI religions doesn't guarantee diversity...very often the same AI chain-founds them anyway and they stay in that territory while one or two spreads. Losing culture in the 1700's to an AI with infantry that has vassaled to a 15 city AI can be very annoying.
 
Dingding, I usually consider tech>land in most cases, However, in semi-isolated map, I believe Land >> tech since you have very limited trade opportunity for a very long time. Moreover, the more land you grab, the less your neighbor can get. I also play some turns with a very aggressive REXing

To 300BC

Spoiler :

Tech:
Agri->BW (this is a critical tech with plenty of forests around capital)->Med->Priest(Indian leader is the one who can grab Oracle easily before 2000BC with very good chance)->Oracle take Monarchy->Wheel->Pottery->AH->Writing->Fishing->IW->Sailing->Masonry->Compass

Capital:
Worker->Warrior->2nd Worker at size 3->Settler at size 4->3rd Worker->Settler...

2nd city in 2480BC
Oracle in 2080BC
3rd city in 1760 BC


625 BC 7 cities settled with 6 workers.



300 BC 9 cities settled with 9 workers. You may have better tech situation and GPP with less cities, but the earlier you settle the cities, the faster those cities will mature and will quickly catch up the tech race.

 

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semi-isolated map, I believe Land >> tech
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This may also have extra merit since there is no GOLDEN-AGE attack for Ghandi's UU.
 
Udey1 said:
Sorry for any sloppyness as it's from a phone but yes this was on deity and non HoF map (can post save later).I am interested in your tech path for your OMP and if you are only attempting it with certain leaders. I can PM you later if you want to not derail the thread. Guess I should post on the forums more.
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Ok, I believe you then. Though I'd like to see that initial start sometime. Obviously you HAD to have marble near by since Churchill has no eccon traits and not even an IND bonus :p

Oh, and a few trees too!

I can't really give you a tech-patch, since that would be quite misleading. It is the start that dictates the tech path (and the leader), not the final goal. And yes, I will do it with non-philo and non-ind leaders too. I don't expect the success to be high in these spots, but they do come in now and then because sometimes Mids, etc, is delayed for quite a while.

I wouldn't really call it a gambit, more of a low-risk, high-reward scenario. Since I am planning to fail it most of the time, I'm already on Plan-B before it happens. The only reason I prefer to consider it a gambit, is no matter how sure you are of being FIRST, you can never assure you're going to get the Engineer. This is where the gambit lays. If only oracle gave engineer gpps instead of priest gpps, I guarantee you this opening would be showing up in a tremendous amount of deity games posted :p

There's a few good reasons why you don't see the Great Wall built much ever since they changed the GPPs to become SPY oriented. When I think about it in hindsight, I think we all really took those points for granted back in the day. Well, that's all in the past now :(
 
fascinating thread. Some good analysis and discussion going on here.

Although I would have tried the "REX" here I am looking foward to OP proving his strategy works.
 
Thank you for your play Duckweed! That’s exactly the opening I was expecting! ABCF’s play is good but he’s chasing for another tech line rather than the Optics one.

I was very curious about what will happen if we play like this so I spent half an hour to continue your game till 800AD. I think in this situation, a Conquest victory is possible but it’s the hardest kind I can imagine.

It’s a sloppy continuation (as most of my games, my problem is I’m always playing too fast) but it’s very useful and I’m going to compare it in the later updates. If I have the time, I retry the game and improve it in order to complete this thread. But if you have the time to continue the 300BC’s save yourself (till 800AD), I’ll appreciate it a lot!
Spoiler :
All these are based on the correct understanding of your strategy: you’re researching Compass to beeline Optics. If not, please ignore this post.

Here is my play:
 

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Duckweed said:
Dingding, I usually consider tech>land in most cases, However, in semi-isolated map, I believe Land >> tech since you have very limited trade opportunity for a very long time.
Click to expand...
Like :hammers:,:science:,:commerce: can be convert from one to another, Land <=> Tech. The convert is possible, and as a matter of fact, I think Land = Tech. I&#8217;m not going to explain it deeper here but you&#8217;ll find we&#8217;ll return to this subject soon.

I think if you do think Tech > Land in most of the games, why do you think like this:
It&#8217;s exactly because Tech > Land and that my trade opportunity is tiny here, I should sacrifice some expansion (Land) to find ASAP more trade occasions (Time = Money and Tech trade = Tech).

Duckweed said:
Moreover, the more land you grab, the less your neighbor can get.
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Although giving pressure to neighbor(s) is one of the most important missions at the opening, I feel if I consider Willem as only opponent in the map, the other five will be madly happy. In this dual situation, I&#8217;m his only enemy (on expansion), but he&#8217;s not my only one (on the game): the other five can be crazily trading techs on the other continent.
Spoiler :
Given the normal situation, a Deity AI can win culture victory at around t280-290 and space victory at t310. It&#8217;s quite a tight schedule.

We have no choice but to ACT LOCAL in this dual, that means grab the sufficient land to develop (as much as possible for you and 5-6 cities for me); but strategically we should THINK GLOBAL: to keep the tech advantage (by SE and Tech trade ASAP) is no less, if not more, important than to grab one or two city from Willem.
Spoiler :
Anyway there will be no difference between his cities and mine in the long run. ;)
 
Artichoker said:
True...risks exist in many places in the game, but that point does not lessen the fact that the Oracle gambit adds additional risk to the game. Take the basic REX strategy, for example. Following that strategy instead of the Oracle gambit would not require the 80% dice roll that your plan required. Granted, there are many other risks that need to be taken in the remaining part of the game, but these will be present in both strategies. The main difference, however, is the initial 80% risk that you needed to take to get the plan started in the first place.
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Pointed noted. It's just a simple calculation: if the probability of success of a normal opening represent 80%, change it to a special one will add more risk, say the probability becoming 80%*80%=64%.

But after a try of Duckweed's save (#73), I've got more to say:

The common openings are common and popular simply because they ensure a good feasibility in most of the cases, for most of the leaders, to most of the players. That's why people are easily conditioned to these playstyles.

However, the success (or failure) of the game depends on many more factors: some are known, as the traits of the leaders, the civ, the BFC, etc; some of them are unknown and to be discovered, like your neighbors, the map, the environment, etc. Of course, the final victory of the playstyle requires also the player's skill. So a common way (REX) doesn't mean the best one and the only one in a specific map. But that's not the thing I'm going to prove.
Spoiler :
I'll be happy if somebody proves that.

More important to me and to most of the readers, I just need to show how this playstyle WORKS. And I'm lucky that this playstyle seems to work better than a common REX show and get me out of the messy situation.
 
To ABCF:

Spoiler :

ABigCivFan said:
You are very lucky William gave you until 14xxBC to settle the Gems although they are right next to his border, If i were in your situation, I would settle the gems as the 2nd city instead of the 3rd. Also if you start seeing Willam's galleys, would you close border to prevent him settling your back yard.
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About the expansion strategy, I've talked about it at #33 to RRRaskolnikov.

According to my experience, to close the border costs more than you gain in most of the cases in this kind of situation: there are 5 other competitors in the game.
ABigCivFan said:
If I were to continue my game, I have several cities with seafood resources, i intend to farm them and run scientists in multiple cities for GS while focusing capital on cottages. There are a lot of potential what 9 cities with prime grass land can generate once the infrastructures are whipped.
Click to expand...
I tried Duckweed's game and beelined Optics. But it's not working. Maybe your game will be better as you're beelining Liberalism. Given the good luck, we can get liber and trade something with Education. I'm not sure it's would be easier than Duckweed's game.

To TMIT:
Spoiler :
TheMeInTeam said:
The more religions you get though, the slower the deity AI on the other side of the world gets to culture.
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You gave a good point. But as for religion, more importantly the less religions a peacemonger AI
gets, the less fast his research is. I'll talk about it later.
 
dingding said:
Pointed noted. It's just a simple calculation: if the probability of success of a normal opening represent 80%, change it to a special one will add more risk, say the probability becoming 80%*80%=64%.

But after a try of Duckweed's save (#73), I've got more to say:

The common openings are common and popular simply because they ensure a good feasibility in most of the cases, for most of the leaders, to most of the players. That's why people are easily conditioned to these playstyles.
Click to expand...

I have no complaints with the core parts of your strategy; in fact, I find your explanation of them very deep and interesting to read.

But your plan to deploy your strategy into play is where the biggest flaw exists. If we look at Duckweed's game, for example, he also went for the Oracle, but the important difference was that he researched Bronze Working and built a Settler before attempting the Oracle. By doing this, the risk for failing the Oracle was greatly lessened, even though his completion date for the Oracle was later than yours.

I'm sure you could have done the same thing in your game and still have executed the core parts of your strategy, assuming the initial 1st step was taken successfully. In fact, I wouldn't mind if you restarted your own game and tried a more conservative approach for that crucial early part of the game.
 
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