Problems on Marathon Deity with "normal" leaders

Hi everybody

Most of you know, that I played solely Incans up to this point, but I thought that it'd be time for a switch and try out some other leaders. Incans have the big advantage that they can get a lot cities very early, but their Quechuas suck against Hills-Cities and once an AI has Chariots or Axes, it's over, and that can be the case at 3000 BC already on Deity.

So I extensively tried out Julius Caesar of Rome yesterday. Praetorians are a great early Unit and cheaper Settlers sounded awesome. I tried out different starts and noticed the following things:

1. I could not believe how hard it was to get Oracle before T150 (2000 BC) , but I managed that.
2. I always ended up with only 3 cities till then. This often included whipping away even the Gold and chopping every Forrest I had.
3. Getting GLH and Mids was impossible! I could imagine Mids if i had started out with stone, but you know how rare that is, and GLH, maybe if the Capital was coastal, but thats already a problem, a coastal capital with having Stone and possibly Marble? That's even worse than searching for Gold / Gems starts with Incans.

The buildorder I used was always Worker first, research Agriculture. I then tried building a 2nd Worker directly after that aswell as first growing to size 2 before training him, found 2nd worker directly stronger as growing to size 2 only spared like 2/20 turns.
Research of AH seems impossible to me if one wants to get Oracle before T150. This includes every other tech like Sailing, Masonry, Hunting, Pottery, as one also needs BW. Agri + BW + Mysticism + Meditation + Priesthood = already about 130T of Research if one has only Palace Commerce.
Working Gold / Gems, almost impossible to get Settlers / Workers out then. Growing to larger sized capital to not whip away the Gold, impossible without a Granary. Whipping, ineffective without a Granary but still necessary.

The only game actually that made it into one with which I could have succeeded was one where I had a coastal 5 Crabs no Gold Start, because with WBs, the city can at least grow while building them, also coastal tiles give at least some Commerce. Anyhow, again had no chance at Mids and GLH in that game.

Now I really don't know what my question is, but hope that you somehow understand my problem, which is, to adapt. I want to do a points-approach with a non-Incan Civ, therefor I need to learn to rex harder and still get the GLH + the Mids. I'll post a start here within the hours which we'll play together to see what I'm missing.

Maybe you already know some things which might help me or some things I should consider when creating the start. I already noticed how extremely large the difference is when starting on a plains-Hill or even one having Marble / Stone. I can search for a start like that, but then, no Gold / Gems, so please post your preferences. I'm also willing to play a different Civ than Rome if you think this is better, I see Carthage, China, the holy Romans and England as possible Candidates, so please post your wishes for them too.
Please also post your opinion if you think that this is 1) not possible at all 2) only possible with choking or 3) possible the normal way.

Cya soon,

Seraiel

Any suggestions on which Civ to take before I create the start?

Rome, Carthage, China, holy Romans and England are possible.

And any suggestions on what the start should contain?

I. e. Stone, Marble, Grains, Seafood, Lux.

And now you see why people don't recommend getting too many wonders

I'm not sure that any leader can compete with the Incans, but with the way that you play, I would highly recommend an ORG leader. ORG is a bit slower to get started compared to FIN, but it is probably still more powerful. ORG plus The Great Lighthouse is truly amazing.

I would consider dropping the Pyramids just so that you have enough time. That means that you won't need to have stone nearby.

Wet corn is the best resource, and production is the best way to leverage it, imo. Elephants on plains tiles are as good as grass hills; elephants on grass tiles are stronger. I like having, say, 10 production in the capital before you get extra happies.

Do you build a lot of cities yourself? If I remember correctly, you do, but I'm still unsure that IMP is the best trait for what you're going for.

Org Imp, that would be Julius Caesar.

I cannot drop the Mids for this game, because playing for points is best if one can run an all farms Specialist Economy.

10 are easy to get, because every Capital BFC get's at least 3 hills, . If I create a start with stone, it'll be hard to get one that has Gold or any Lux in addition, but I'll try.

Elephants means the research of Hunting, and starting near the jungle, so less trees.

I'll start on creating some starts now, and post screens, so we can choose together.

Brb.

Ok, here is the first start. As Um suggested, it has Elephants, I got lucky and got Gems on plus and it also has wet corn.



I guess SIP is the choice here. This reveals the following:



So we got wet Bananas we can farm as a 2nd source of Food.

What shall be the next move:

1. Worker first, research Agri, grow to size 2, improve Bananas, build 2nd Worker, or
2. build 2 Workers, research Agri, or
3. Grow to size 2 or 3, research BW first, whip Worker, or
4. something else.

Savegame attached for those who wanna see for themselves and play with us.

Sera

why don't you try Augustus? he's Ind.

But you already know that Inca's are totally other league, that's why they are banned in almost every challenge, G-Major, G-Minor.

One complication I feel there you have is that you ideally want to beeline IW for Praets while beeline for Oracle something good and that is a lot of work on Deity.

In the start you posted...right now not sure, but I think settling at ivory should give you 2H city tile, if so I would settle on them

Doing all 3 wonders (Oracle, GLH, Mids) while quick rex is very complicated (actually on normal speed if you go this WWE you basically stay 1-city max 2-city for long time, not much more time). Basically all wonders on normal speed (yeah i know) would need to be done before T70 with some spread and even then some b*tch far away could land Oracle T50 (saw it on Immortal).

For WWE it's better to have at least stone. Marble usually doesn't quicken Oracle since you need to tech masonry, improve the tile and get myst-->ph+target tech to unlock something (be it pottery, writing or whatever you have on mind).

Don't like calendar resources in BFC...first you get usually jungle close (which you already see), second you can't "improve them right" for very long time, since calendar is usually traded (here we probably differ, since I remember you saying that you kind of beeline calendar to get MoM and is probably valid strategy if you regularly do sailing for GLH and math for currency, which unlocks calendar)

I don't think that Augustus can handle the city-maintenance in a Sushi-game, one needs at least one of FIN or ORG.

Btw, if I wanna go GLH, this start doesn't qualify, as it's too far away from the coast, will create another one. Vranasm, Um, others, please post what you'd like to have. I will search for coastal + Stone now.

Please also post your opinions on the opening like I suggested, 1 Worker -> Grow, 2 Workers, or go BW first grow whip Workers. With coastal it should be a little easier, as we'll have to build WBs first.

Your Tip, Vranasm, to stay at less cities may be the clue I was missing, because I tried to get those wonders while rexing hard. On Marathon btw, we have to complete all three till T150 to be on the "safe" side.

Brb.

I really think you should specialize with the wonders.
Btw what is the aim of this exercise? Beating WastinTime is probably not the aim since you would have to stick with Incas.

The Oracle, GLH, Mids are somewhat "holy trinity of civ", but I don't think you need all of them at once to compete.

On watery maps GLH is strongest. On landlocked it's probably Mids.
Oracle is ??? not sure it's such a gamble even on Emperor that it's better to not rely on it.

Rome starts with fishing, thus looking for coastal start with forested PH hears sensible. Opens quick sailing+masonry and GLH.
Once GLH you can just spam galleys and settlers and settle ton of islands.

the GLH stategy doesn't mesh well with Mids strategy for simple reason. GLH is horizontal, Mids are vertical, meaning if you land GLH you should spam settlers "everywhere" to abuse it, staying smaller even in cap and definitely not using many scientists all around (wasting the Rep bonus, another complication being that Rep happy is for 5 cities where you expect to horizontally expand to 10+ cities very quickly - if we would talk about normal I would say 10 cities around 500 BC being the target, tough to convert to mara)

So my thoughts are... "play the map", "specialize with wonders according to map".

The point of this exercise is to get better, to produce the highest non-Incan score, and to have some fun

For extremely high score you have to go horizontal + vertical, meaning settling as much as you can while growing the cities and whipping as little as possible to work specialists.

I won't cut out on the Mids, they're absolutely necessary for a points-approach because non-REP Specialists are just too weak. Missing GLH maybe possible, though then, it'll be very difficult to set up an economy as strong as needed for Lib -> Med.

And play the map doesn't count for HoF, if the map sucks, just create a better one Mapfinder is running and saving all Stone-Starts atm.

Currency prereqs as well as a diversion to ironworking

If you do it I imagine you'll have 1 city vs 6 each for the AIs. Is it then possible to build praetorians fast enough? Well there will be an iron tile so that will help. There will be an iron tile. There WILL. (Let's all pray together!)

Most AIs are going to have axemen by the time war starts.

Would Darius be better for this?

I think after the Wonders, we'll be able to rex pretty good with Julius, as it's a huge map and there should be enough space left for settling and IMP could do the trick. Also, I only picked Wimps as Civs, so there will be Axes, but no Shock-Axes, and normal Axes have no chance against the power of CR Praets. Getting Iron also won't be a problem on a Huge map, especially not in a HoF game where one could simply take a new map if Iron wasn't available. IW we'll get by trade easily, AI always techs it and is willing to trade it by the time we oracle.

I thought about possible leaders and Darius also is a strong Candidate. What I like about him is that he starts with a Scout, giving him at least 50% more Huts and better results from those, what I don't like about him are the Immortals, which are simply to weak if encountering Spears, and I don't know if this is a Marathon issue, but AIs in my games tend to build 80% Spears if they have Copper, I sometimes see 10 Spears on 1 Axe, another reason why Julius should be stronger than Darius.

I really really thought about Hannibal, as Numidians are plain awesome, but with missing IMP or EXP Trait, expansion will be really slow. I also thought about Mao, because Praets come nearly too early. Otoh, Machinery is a big diversion from the desired tech-path and oracling it should be pretty difficult I guess, and in addition to that, he has no trait helping to get some money and Cho-Ku-Nu's get countered pretty well by HAs.

Best pick would of course be BurgerKing, but I really cannot imagine how one should be able to scuccessfully rush with him and still get fast Sushi, bulbing Engineering for Landcraps means the research MC, Machinery and waiting for a GE which (on Huge / Marathon) only bulbs about 2/3 of Engi, and like Mao, PRO is pretty weak imho.

Too bad that Shaka is even weaker.

So I'm open to suggestions concerning the leader, we can make several tries with different ones if we notice that something is missing.

I'm back .

Here are the starts that MapFinder created for me in the meantime, please choose one and suggest a starting move so we can get this going.

1.



Wet Rice, Stone Hill on which we should not settle, Clams, Fishes and grassland Cows. Settling 1 SE gives +1 but then we'd miss the Fishes so I'd say SIP?

2.



Almost the same but a little bit stronger than the one above imho, starting on a plains Hill, having dry corn, again Clams and Fishes, and the Stone doesn't lie on a hill this time. I'd also suggest SIP.

3.



Non-coastal, but the blue circle indicates, that the coast is near. Suggesting a starting move here is most important.

4.



With this one, I don't know where the coast is so if it's even possible to get GLH, but I think we should give this one a try, because 2 times Gold, wet Corn, Stone, Trees and FPs is a very good start imho.

5:



Maybe the strongest one. 1N gives a production bonus, and it has 4 Crabs and at least 3 green hills. It won't have as many tress though as some others.

6.



Again not coastal but coast is near so can be settled with a 2nd city, I moved the settler already 1 tile because SIP wouldn't have given the stone. I'd suggest settling on the PH so that both of those Corns will get wet with CS and because one can already see the jungle W of the Stone, so settling on the Stone will probably give a lot less forrests.

8.



Not so strong Food but a garantueed number of 11 Forrests and only few (weak) sea-tiles.

9.



The 2nd last one, you've nearly made it through! This is a very very strong one imho, with enough Food for 3 cities. We could settle on the Stone for production Bonus and 3 times Food or we could go crazy and settle on the wet corn for the Food Bonus without having to research Agri (but that would mean wrecking the possibility to build more cities there with so much Food) .

10.



Lots of Forrests and a Stone Hill. We could settle on it for a short-term advantage but would create a very bad city imho with too many (weak) sea-tiles.


Now vote or die!

Seraiel

Would you consider Giggles for rexing? Good uu, ub and start tec.

Hmm, I can't follow...

What's good about Gilgamesh? His UB is a normal CH that's available with Priesthood, with all other leaders we're probably oracling CoL, so this makes no difference. His UU is an Axeman with +1 STR but less bonus against other Melees, I find that Axemen suck in general on higher difficulties, especially when we could take Praets, Numidians or Cho-Ku's.

That leaves good starting Techs, but then I'd prefer Hatty or Ramesses as the War Chariot is imho better than the Vulture, but I'd actually not prefer neither of them, as they all got no trait helping finances which I think is needed if playing a Sushigame on a Huge map.

Seraiel said:

So I'm open to suggestions concerning the leader, we can make several tries with different ones if we notice that something is missing.

Click to expand...

Do you ever let starting techs influence your leader choice? I don't play Marathon but I've heard tech starts slow. Agriculture and The Wheel aren't just the two most useful techs, they're also the two most expensive. Mining is a clear 3rd place but it's cheaper. It's generally stronger to start with roads & farms, and then research what you need. I suppose the difference is more beakers on Marathon, but that doesn't mean it's more important.

Of your picks, Hannibal and China are both Ag-Mining civs, which is a great combo. The Ottomans give you your choice of Exp/Imp along with Ag-Wheel though. Most of your choices have crummy starting techs, which is why I'm curious if/why it's not a factor.

2,5,6 (btw 7 has the same picture as 6) seems like good candidates

2 has advantage with building wb with 3 hammers and 1 food which is nice, but doesn't offer enough hammer tiles, the 2x 5-food should compensate

5 is in a sense similar to 2, crabs are worse though (a lot worse then fish+corn)

6 looks like settle 1N to retain stone and settle for 2H city tile. 2x corn to offer enough worker job, commerce will be big problem

edit: oh btw you can't wet the corn through city when on hill

I'd go with 4.

But TBH I don't really see Rome, and JC more so, to be particularly suited to rex & wonderwhoring at the same time. I'd rather try it with Hatty. Or maybe even Cathy with HAs for the early rush needs. Or Zara? He's even organized to alleviate your fear of financial collapse. Louis, as IND & CRE, would make a surprisingly good choice too.

JustBen said:

Do you ever let starting techs influence your leader choice? I don't play Marathon but I've heard tech starts slow. Agriculture and The Wheel aren't just the two most useful techs, they're also the two most expensive. Mining is a clear 3rd place but it's cheaper. It's generally stronger to start with roads & farms, and then research what you need. I suppose the difference is more beakers on Marathon, but that doesn't mean it's more important.

Click to expand...

Sure about the more beakers on Marathon? BW takes 59 turns to research with only Palace Commerce, don't know how long it takes on normal speed.

I must admit, that I cannot measure how important starting Techs are, because the only Deity games I've played so far, were with HC, and all the Emperor games before that don't count, because Emperor is 100 times easier then Deity. But if I think about it now, I think that Caesar isn't a bad choice, even concerning his techs. As you can see, there are lots of starts with Stone + Seafood, and the plan is to get the magic Trio of GLH + Mids + Oracle. Fishing fits with the GLH and Seafood imho is better then normal Food because it also gives , Mining allows for earlier BW (one can even find it in a Hut if one is lucky) and Roads matter only in some cases, where one cannot settle on the Stone i. e. like in case #9, so it's even possible to skip those.

Of your picks, Hannibal and China are both Ag-Mining civs, which is a great combo. The Ottomans give you your choice of Exp/Imp along with Ag-Wheel though. Most of your choices have crummy starting techs, which is why I'm curious if/why it's not a factor.

Click to expand...

I can create some starts with Hannibal or China, if you still think that they'd be better for the task. Personally, I find Rome an awesome Civ, especially on Marathon. Praets are pure ownage and ORG / IMP are great Traits, especially in a Deity points approach.

Another point that just comes to my mind why I don't consider starting techs of such great value is: On Deity, AI gets Alpha between 2500 and 2000 BC, so one will get everything by trade then if trading the oracled tech.

vranasm said:

2,5,6 (btw 7 has the same picture as 6) seems like good candidates

2 has advantage with building wb with 3 hammers and 1 food which is nice, but doesn't offer enough hammer tiles, the 2x 5-food should compensate

5 is in a sense similar to 2, crabs are worse though (a lot worse then fish+corn)

6 looks like settle 1N to retain stone and settle for 2H city tile. 2x corn to offer enough worker job, commerce will be big problem

edit: oh btw you can't wet the corn through city when on hill

Click to expand...

Deleted #7, was a weak start imho and could not find the picture. That irrigation cannot be spread through a city if it's on a hill is interessting, I was wondering already why this sometimes wasn't possible .

What I wonder more about is, why not #9? It has 2 Seafood and we could settle on the stone and spare the research of TW by that. It also has wet Corn, Fishes and 2 Lighthouse lakes, so some and good Food. And: Why not #4? 2 Golds will give awesome , and it has wet Corn and a lot of Forrests.

Silverbow said:

I'd go with 4.

But TBH I don't really see Rome, and JC more so, to be particularly suited to rex & wonderwhoring at the same time. I'd rather try it with Hatty. Or maybe even Cathy with HAs for the early rush needs. Or Zara? He's even organized to alleviate your fear of financial collapse. Louis, as IND & CRE, would make a surprisingly good choice too.

Click to expand...

4 + 9 are also my picks imho, but I want to wait for the comments of others before I decide, but I won't wait very long.

According to your oppinion, maybe switch to Augustus? Maybe IND is needed for this, but I think it's also possible without IND having the specific Ressources, IND is only 50%, Ressource + OR is 125%. During the process of this game I only want to build very few Wonders in addition, the MoM and the TM are needed for the GA-Chain but actually nothing else, that's why I wanted to try this with Julius, picking IND for 5 Wonders seems a waste. We can aso argue about the GLH, problem I have is, that I don't know how we could achieve a really strong economy without having the extra TRs, TR-Commerce is just so powerful.

Problem I have with the other suggested leaders are, that they don't have good UU / UBs. I thought about Cathy already because her Traits are tremendously powerful. Above Hatty, I'd prefer Ramesses, because I find CRE not that powerful on Marathon as Religion-spread is trippled and I play with lots of Religion-Mongers, in most games I played, I didn't even have to build 1 Monument to get a Borderpop.

actually scrap my thoughts...realized that doesn't make any sense...

not sure...gold and 9 are strong ones too... that's why I don't like mapfinder...you get too many starts and it's not obvious what to choose as best.

I think all starts are a bit tricky, maybe the ones I mentioned are easier how to start so i like them a bit better.

edit:
what I really liked at the fishing starts i picked is that there is enough hammers to get the WB's rolling.

Ok, then you're also for playing out 4 + 9? I'd suggest 4 first as Silverbow also voted for that one.