deity aw 3

so we are back

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but this time it´s different, this time WE ACTUALLY KNOW THAT WE HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN (no, i´m not kidding)

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why is this:

this series started, because i claimed somewhere that it´s possible to win a deity aw game on a standard pangea map. even more, i claimed that i would estimate the chances around 30% of winning (1 out of 3) when you play it right and when you are allowed to play unresticted leaders, picking the uber leader for aw games:

wang kong of mali

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summary of the games so far:

deity aw 1:
actually a nice map, with a decent area to block the ai and room to expand. still, no wins, last player gave up around 1200 AD, due to beeing very, very backwards compared to the ais.

since it was the first game from this (short) series, most players had little / no experience with playing aw on deity and therefore couldnt keep up in tech. same happened to me altough i knew in theory what to do, but i drew a very unlucky start and as a result got overrun by the ais 800 AD



deity aw 2:
in my opinion, this map was even harder then the one we drew for deity aw 1, and as a result, not many players did post their tries or they gave up already in the BCs.

this time, i got a lucky start (even managed to steal a few workers) and managed to pull of the strategy i already wanted to show in deity aw 1:

the spy economy, fulled with a great spy as first great person:

most people think of the great wall when hearing "spy economy", because this seems the easiest way to get your great spy. but actually it isnt. in this game, i missed the great wall (the start was still very luck and strong, dont get me wrong), and still managed to pull of a spy economy.

how was this done:
the trick here is to get codes of law via the oracle. then you have 15 turns, to build a courthouse in a city, that HASNT build the oracle (100 gp points, oracle gives 2, that makes 50 turns, spy gives 3, that makes 34 turns, 50-34=16 turns, -1 to get the great spy 1 turn earlier)

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actually, i havent finished deity aw 2, but as things stand i have a fair chance there to win it. now i thought this beeing a good time to start the 3rd installment, so we can test if what i managed to do there was only luck or if this is really a valid strategy

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but before we start, i want to put into a short summary, what strategy you should try when playing this. still, if you dont have won under normal deity settings quite a few games, dont expect to win this on the first try:



deity aw games need to be played under 2 aspects:


1. safety:
to survive this kind of game, you need to have one or more blocking cities (hill cities, protected with first-strike skirmishers, later longbows) where you can slaughter heaps of ai units with minimal losses.

so the most important target under the safety concept is to locate the spots, where we want to put down our blocking cities and to prevent the ai from settling there. finding them is easy... ...move around with your starting warrior and look for hill...

protecting them from the ai can be done by 2 ways:

- simply settle there first or
- hang around there with at least 1 skirmisher of your own. the ai usually doesnt approach your units (remember this is an always war game) with a settler, so having your skirmishers 1-2 tiles ahead of where you want to settle, usually is enough to keep the ai away from it

then simply keep fortifying in the blocking cities more and more skirmishers (later longbows) and watch the ai killing stacks after stacks at these cities. you will take some losses here and there, but usually some 10-15 skirmishers / longbows deal a lot of paint to any attacking stacks and manage to hold the city. dont forget to have a healer in each blocking city.



2. tech-stealing:
the basic conept of this i already mentioned earlier:

1. get a fast second city as close as possible to your capital up and running
2. this city needs at least 3 forests and 1 food ressource (it always can borrow one from the capital)
3. if your second city has enough production to get the oracle done around t55-65, you can decide if you want to put the oracle in your capital or your second city. in this case, i would usually opt for the second city, because you get a free borderpop via the oracle. if not, build the oracle in your capital.
4. in most cases it is neccessary to build another settler (for at least 1 blocking city) before you start the oracle in your capital, so you have to time things
5. depending in which city you have build the oracle, you now have 15 turns to get the courthouse built in the other city
6. 34 turns after having built the courthouse, you will get your great spy.
7. it now would be ideal, if you could time getting alphabet something like 10 turns before your great spy gets born, so you already have 2 spies in place once your great spy get born. usually, it doesnt work out that way (see my deity aw 2 game) but delaying your spy economy by something like 15-20 turns isnt a big deal, as long as you can start stealing techs around 1 AD.
8. tech towards civil service while stealing everything else from your spy-victim (priorize feudalism high, for the longbows)

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putting these 2 concepts together, we should be able to keep up even with the deity ais under aw settings, given we have the right start and the right map, at least in 1 out of 3 games

I'll be reading this thread, and probably have afew attempts again

so here is it now, our 3rd deity aw game, again hosted by wang kong of mali

View attachment 290292

this is one of the best starts i have drawn in a long time. and it only took something like 1.000 rerolls:

phants, rivercorn, gems, and pighills (mine them). a bit low on production, but complaining with a start like this feels... ...wrong, no?

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i already played a bit into this map (i started 2-3 games this weekend to be honest, this was the best start and map by far). and without spoilering too much, i think i can reveal this:

this map plays like the one we had in deity aw 1, so if you manage to block at the right spots (in aw 1, virtually all players did settle their blocking cities in the same area, thats why i dont think this is a too big spoiler, and i want to motivate a few more players to try this... ...common, this one is really winnable), you will have a nice area to toy around with.

just remember the basics:

1. safety:
get your blocking cities up and running (size 1 is fine, as long as you have enough skirmishers/longbows in it)
so dont delay archery... ...go archery really fast to secure your hills

2. tech stealing:
- settle a helper city really close to your capital, with at least 3 woods and 1 foodsource (if needed, share with capital, that´s what i did in aw 2)
- beeline the oracle + writing and grab col
- get a courthouse in time (15 turns after the oracle)
- run a spy
- dont get killed while doing so
- try to expand a bit while doing so

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if you have questions, ask. better play in short intervalls and post here if you want some feedback. for some more details about techstealing and how to go on the offence, best is to read a bit in the deity aw 2 thread.

remember to put everything in spoilers

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it also would be great if you would post a summary and some pics (the more pics and details the better) and your save when playing a turnset. the turnsets we plan to play (or already have played):

turnset 1:
t0 -t40 (played

turnset 2:
t41 - t70 (should be finished soon)

turnset 3:
t71 -95 (open to play)

if you stick to the above mentioned turnsets, other players can comment and compare (including me) and might give you some input and tips

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go, get them

@Snaaty
Not playing this one, but I sign up as a lurker.
Btw, I just finished reading the BtS-Guide for higher levels linked in your signature, quite interesting reading.
Greetings,
yatta.

now THAT looks incredible start for me! too bad you're running on Deity AND AW

scares the hell out of me!

I would like to hear from experienced players at what point you do Archery thingy and at what size to start settler? It is better to...what I know start it size 3 and get the blocker sooner up with building skirmisher? or you could delay a bit?

Thx, Snaaty! I rolled like 1000 Pangea starts myself trying get one with good block. It's very rare on Pangea maps, but on Fractal I had quite a few.

@Vranasm We start with mining/wheel. Looks like Agriculture then Hunting+Archery, Masonry before Hunting if we will be able to get first skirmisher out by ~turn40. Based on my experience AI will not attack very early, but barbs sure will .

i'd suggest giving it a swing with Sumeria ... Vultures aren't half-bad and Zigs can get online extremely early for easier access to espionage and Great Spies than having to slug your way (hoping for some luck) towards CodeOfLaws

Is it too costly in this scenario to spend a turn moving 1N? Worth the extra two hills?

ben-jammin said:

Is it too costly in this scenario to spend a turn moving 1N? Worth the extra two hills?

Click to expand...

1N doesn't even cost you a turn.
It does cost you the hillside capital, though. The defensive bonus for having your city on a hill can be extremely important in these games.

You'd also lose the grassland gems - hardly seems worth it, neither for the hills nor for the flood plains.

Cusanus said:

1N doesn't even cost you a turn.
It does cost you the hillside capital, though. The defensive bonus for having your city on a hill can be extremely important in these games.

You'd also lose the grassland gems - hardly seems worth it, neither for the hills nor for the flood plains.

Click to expand...

Sorry I don't know why i put 1N when i meant the exact opposite. Obviously 1s costs you a turn but gains you the PH you start on and another hill to the south. It also costs you an extra hammer in the capital, and I'm only an immortal player (let alone always war) so I don't know how two extra hills vs 1 extra hammer early and 1 extra turn works out here. I would like to give this a try but dont want to put myself at a disadvantage from turn one.

some quick answers:

archery: like gkey said, we start mining + wheel. so i would only do agri, then hunting+archery building a skirm asap (worker, warrior, warrior (or partly warrior), skirm). like that our worker has enough to do (farm corn, mine gems+pigs, camp on phants) and we have enough early food. another option is warrior with max. hammers for max. scouting, then worker, warrior (or partly warrior), skirm

delaying archery a bit:
+ gets you some other techs earlier
- ai might wander with a single archer towards your capital. it will camp there forever if you cant stop him with a skirm on the and open might block an important tile or at least be in the way (you need to protect your worker always in that case). later you need to sacrifice a warrior to remove this archer (move warrior on the open next to it, archer attacks, clean up with skirm)

moving your settler: i wouldnt move. usually i move onto the nearest plainshill (ph) if i see one with food nearby. so no, dont move away, the extra hammers is too mighty (worker in 12 instead of 15). settling on the phants is an alternative in normal games, but under aw, too risky not settling on a hill without knowing how far the ai are away...

Sian said:

i'd suggest giving it a swing with Sumeria ... Vultures aren't half-bad and Zigs can get online extremely early for easier access to espionage and Great Spies than having to slug your way (hoping for some luck) towards CodeOfLaws

Click to expand...

aw has its advantages... ...usually the ais are busy building units and therefore the wonders (except the very early ones like gw, henge) go a bit later giving you a "quite save" shot on the oracle. but we will see in this game when we get it (or miss it, but i dont think so)

but most important:
the only way i have found out for winning deity aw games on a somewhat reliable base (like i already mentioned, something like 1 out of 3) is playing with protective mali, best results i had was finacial+protectiv mali, therefore our pivate hereoe, wang kong of mali

@snaaty,

I have been fiddling with some starts as well, i'm currently playing one which goes fairly well. I have enough land there. Ais are far away though so getting the spies in place will take some time.

Some points...

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To make the oracle gambit successful you need some commerce:

early cottages but this needs pottery delaying writing by some 6 turns, if built early enough on fp's maybe we get that lost time back
early clams/coast fish as in aw2
a gold (or gem resource)

If you don't have any of these getting oracle in time will be hard. Mind you in aw2 we also had marble available speeding up the oracle and it was built around 1800 BC. Without early commerce and marble not a chance imo.

It's not such a problem if the courthouse is a bit late btw, you can put on some scientists at the end to overtake the priest, if you're not very late >80% you'll get your gspy anyway not a big deal on this gruesome format i think.
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There is a reasonable alternative which i tested on quite a few starts, it works best with an agri resource and a few unforested hills (forested plain hills are ok but not as good as your worker will be idle). In the game i described above i had to go hunting->AH. I don't think it works well if some AI is really close because you will be too late to get a block city between you and this AI.

Research agri then go masonry and put on the GW immediately once it's in (if a warrior is almost finished, finish that first). Improve your food resource and then the available hills. After it depends, if BW comes in time to make a difference by chopping GW i'll research it now,else i may go archery->pottery first.

With an agri resource i got GW around approximately 2400 BC most of the time which is often early enough. In the game above i got it 2200 BC which was early enough in this case, you need some fogbust around your capital if you're this late with GW, i used the extra time to make 2 extra warriors.

Problem is the occasional early AI archer but this doesn't happen that often. And if it happens it often doesn't go for the city but makes a nuisance of itself in some forest nearby (!? yes the Ai is stupid).

Once GW is up make a skirmisher and a settler asap. Also keep a warrior in the neighborhood of your first block site else a barb city may appear there.

I got GW this way on >80% of the starts i tested. This strat does hurt your initial development somewhat as you'll have to invest 150 H in GW. However you don't need as many skirmishers early as barbs are no longer a problem so you can make up for lost time to some extent. In comparison the oracle costs you 150 H at a time you can afford it a bit better (first block city is up), you'll have to invest in some techs though that you don't really need at that time and you still need to be on the lookout for barbs.
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I noticed the same behavior in Ais bypassing the block city as in aw2. You have to be a bit lucky here i feel . It is less of a problem after 500 BC. The stacks that are most likely to bypass your Block city are stacks size 3-5 with a lot of mounted units or archers but often 1-2 metal units in it as well. These stacks are so annoying especially the mounted units which really go for pillage that it sometimes pays to invest in some 4 extra skirmishers to fortify on hills or forests, these are often attacked by such stacks and they tend to survive if in groups of 2-3. Have a good road network so you can move these skirmishers back to your block city if necessary.

Larger stacks especially with cats tend to sac on the first city they encounter so you can concentrate your efforts on one or 2 block cities after ~500 BC.

Sometime you can get smaller stacks to attack your block city after all by extracting units from it.This is risky though, if they do attack after all they'll have some chance of winning. And it doesn't always work. I have a feeling that this behavior of not attacking the block city may have to do with the xml parameter "Attack courage", the higher this value the more units are prone to sac on the first city they encounter. Might be interesting to see what happens when you only pick Ais like Nappy/Monty/Shaka. Their units have the highest Attack courage and are maybe less troublesome.

Finally

It takes a lot of skill, experience but also commitment to play games with this format well. You can't just casually play along as you will surely lose that way. Normal deity is a cakewalk in comparison. And it's a bit one sided, tech trading and diplo are 2 of the most enjoyable things in the game and they're missing here. I can understand that the format isn't that popular on the forums.

@ all:

i´m very interested in your opening and in the ai behaviour during the first 40 turns (and im sure dirk is also)

so it would be great if you all could play 40 turns, then post some pics and the save for the other players so see and compare what you did (i will do the same).

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i will update the starting post with this also

Is it actually preferable to mine the pig hills?

also im wondering if cottages are generally a stupid idea with always war? What are the chances of blocking cities protecting the capital to the extent that cottages will survive on those floodplains?

ben-jammin said:

Is it actually preferable to mine the pig hills?

also im wondering if cottages are generally a stupid idea with always war? What are the chances of blocking cities protecting the capital to the extent that cottages will survive on those floodplains?

Click to expand...

pigs:
your capital is short on hammers, not on food, so its better to mine them up to the point where you migth need to split food on a helper city (depends where you want to get your oracle city up and running).
AND
you dont have ah in the beginning, but you have mining. a 2f3h tile is mighty

cottages:
usually you can cottage your backlands. but you need to know where your backlands are. all near the front should get mined/farmed/workshopped. best is to read what i did and how i specialized my cities in deity aw 2. there i showed what i usually do with my cities (for me, that approach works best):
cottage 2-3 cities far off from the front, for the rest go farms, mines, workshops (guilds + caste are mighty if combined), run spies in all cities except those you need to breed a special sort of gp (scientist, priest)

@ben,No it's better to pasture them. However for the oracle gambit and also the the GW gambit i described you don't have time for AH. For GW gambit you go masonry after AG. For oracle you research something like hunting->archery->bw->myst (before masonry to get the discount)->masonry->med->ph->writing finishing the oracle about this time. Only now you'll have time for AH.

You need cottages in aw games and you need them asap. You can compensate with TR's, bulbing and trading in normal deity, not here. Cottages near capital survive unless you'll get extremely unlucky even if troops bypass your block city they tend to sack on the capital, watch out for mounted units and archers though. Mounted units can go on a pillage mission, archers tend to fortify in woods nearby which is very annoying as well as you need skirmishers to protect workers working on tiles near those archers. If you have time for it clear up forests everywhere as much as possible, Ais are very scared of open land.

In summary if cottages are already there they tend to go untouched, if you haven't built them yet it's tough to get them up once troops hang around your capital, that's basically what happened to me in aw2.

I will play it soon snaaty, see how it goes this time. This start seems to be ok for GW gambit but oracle should be possible as well with the gem mine in BFC. Tough decision. Maybe both but that'll cost heavily on expansion, don't think that'll work.

@snaaty, with both food resources up this capital is a prime candidate for whipping even without a granary so i would surely change the mine to a pasture once i have the time.

Gotcha. I did follow the previous AW, though without paying too much attention to detail.

Signing on

No way I will win but I quite enjoy the challenge of just staying alive in these games.

Just a thought about the great spy. Oracling COL and running the specialist sounds superior because it's a guaranteed religion, and also gives a chance of a holycity border pop in the frontline outpost. I don't fancy the Gwall much for its usual reasons since we're building a ton of skirmishers anyway.

^
It's not that simple. You have to compare:

Benefit of reli
Value of col itself (not that great once stealing itself comes into play)
Early block city

with

100% increase in GG

barb protection

necessity to build a courthouse in capital relatively early when going with col, this is not what you want to build in capital around 1000 BC believe me

teching med and ph (and to some extent writing) early. with GW i can go IW instead of writing early.