Awilder's First Deity Game (Frederick/fractal/normal/no events/no huts)

[awilder]

OK, no advice on settling, and I'm impatient , so I just went ahead with my plan. This round is through Pottery and Aesthetics.

First, I should leverage being Philosophical as much as possible:

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I ran one scientist for a turn, and then 8 more turns with 2 will do it. (6+ 8*12 = 100)

Also my troops start arriving at the barb city SE. I take a risk and pick off an archer who wandered out:

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It works out, and there's no counterattack next turn either. That guy gets promoted to cover.

The turn after that, KK gets alpha:

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So I beeline aesth. I still delay AG here bc I really only want it for that rice-not a huge benefit anyway.

Unfortunately, the northern barb city gets taken by Cyrus.

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There was a guerrila 2 archer there! How lucky!

950BC I pop my first scientist.

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Normally I would go academy here. But in that shot, I check the breakeven level (50%), and see that I don't get much out of it. Meanwhile,

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16 more turns and I get another. So I settle the guy.

A couple turns later, KK declares on Burger King

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There was no fist! Dagger?

Also I get my scouting WB out, which may just have to circle back soon.

Here, I'm ready to attack the barb city finally.

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I get lucky and lose no one (25% odds on the first guy). otoh, my veteran has 9 exp . I shoulda milked 10, oh wells.

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Aesthetic comes in on 775BC, and here's the tech screen:

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Here's the diplo situation:

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Everyone hates KK! Ironic that he got alpha first.

Here's my empire:

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I will probably put one turn in Alpha and then trade frenzy. Can someone verify for me: if you are bottom half score, and trade with someone who is also bottom half, you don't get WFYABTA counted right?

 

[Gwaja]

I probably would have settled that Great Scientist myself. Being Philosophical is really cool in the early going to get that Great Person. One of my favorite traits!

Oh and good job with getting that barbarian city. That city is awesome... filled with workable resources. Too bad the wheat cannot be irrigated easily though. But still, 3 food resources plus a gold! Maybe this could be your new GP farm?

Hopefully you can grab Alphabet and Mathematics at least, just from the screen shot. I haven't looked at your save yet, but hopefully you can grab something more interesting than just those.

It's good that the AIs are now beginning to fight each other. Since K. Khan is kinda far away from you, that leaves Cyrus and Wang as your immediate neighbors. If you were to go after someone, who would you go after? I would be interested to see how big Wang is on that peninsula.

 

[awilder]

@Gwaja

Yeah I agree philo is very strong early game. I think I will be able to get alpha+math and backfill some. I definitely need to scout before decided whom to go after. I want to make sure Cyrus doesn't run away with it, but I also want to wait until he chops some jungle out for me. Wang otoh looks like he has good land but I can only see a bit.

We will see I hope!

 

[dragomaster]

good job. you are now at the stage where i ushaly just sit back to watch coments from good players. Cyrus is however an idiot, he can easily attack you out of nowhare and he does have alot of cities at your boarders so if i where to say whom to attack i whold say cyrus.

you do have elephants so maybe beelining construction and horseback riding. I'm shore you can use Aesthetics to trade yourself some of the techs through part reseching alpha and horseback. maths is a direct trade if i remember corectly and every one is willing to trade it at the moment so i do belive it's a good time to make the trade now b4 they start on the hanging gardens.

 

[awilder]

I was thinking about phants. The only problem is I really don't have the production to make it work I think. I'm also not a big early-war guy, and I think I'll stick with what I know this game (build TGlib, tech to lib, etc)

 

[Mylene]

Iam wondering, am i the only one who almost never settles a GS?
Either i build an Academy in one of the future strong beaker cities, or i bulb something...hmm

 

[Dirk1302]

^ Same here

 

[kossin]

Iam wondering, am i the only one who almost never settles a GS?
Either i build an Academy in one of the future strong beaker cities, or i bulb something...hmm

Depends on the situation. If you get a GS really early but your economy is in shambles, settling the GS is more profitable than an Academy in the short term... at least until you get your next GS.

Early settled GS's are worth more than a bulbed GS over the length of a game. They are usually equivalent to a bulb after around 150 turns at the most.

Don't forget the snowball effect as well... putting that GS on sleep means you get to key techs later and later each time comparatively to settling.

~~~

Most of the time though I try to avoid being in a situation where I absolutely need to settle my GS early on as an Academy is just so strong.

 

[awilder]

I find when I play philosophical leaders, I get one 'extra' GP (usually GS) before there are any good techs to bulb. I usually end up settling this guy. In the case of this game, as kossin said, my economy is too weak at the moment for an academy to outpace a settle at least in the time horizon until I get the second GS for academy.

I could have made an academy with this guy, and had the next one wait until I am in say education range, but then I would be having him sit around for 30-40 turns. I dunno that just feels wrong, but it's just based on guy feeling, no hard evidence.

I'm going to play a round; plan is to play until completion of TGlib or somewhere thereabouts.

 

[Gwaja]

I think, in his situation, I would have definitely settled the Great Scientist myself, especially since Freddy Kruger is philosophical. ^_^

Darn it, I should be playing my online game too, but it's been so fun reading up other people's online games.

 

[awilder]

First I teched a turn into Alpha. Then the trading began:

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Due to some score changes when I trade, I'm able to do almost all of these with the lower half score guys.

I got for lit immediately after for TGlib.

When I get IW in, I see that the fish site to my West gets a little better:

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I get a bit of fail gold to burn through when I get my academy up

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And my scouting chariots discover something very interesting:

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They met him through a workboat sitting in a lake in KK's territory! He is probably isolated on another landmass. When I meet him I check is techs and nearly crap my pants. Fortunately it doesn't say "We have our reasons".

There are two spots I want to settle at this point, and I whip out one settler. One was the fish site to the West, the other is:

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Dang it! I was trying to settle the one I was more worried about, but I shoulda gone for that one for sure. There was an archer sitting there fortified, but I didn't see a settler coming. I guess fortified guy indicates desire to settle?

With some chops I'm able to snag TGlib:

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Renegotiate the horse trade. Building NE now.

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In these shots you can see I'm teching music. I didn't have a monopoly on lit, because Louis had it too, but he didn't have math for several turns, so couldn't tech music. So of course when I'm about halfway through, he gets both math and music. ARGGH. I at least get a good trading chip, but the detour to music slowed me way down on my way to CS. When music does finish, several more trades happen:

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When my next GS pops, I notice that taoism has not been founded. I have a grand total of 0 religions in my 6 cities. I don't think it's really a good thing to found tao, and I usually do not bulb philo, but I figure I might be able to get cyrus in tao or something bc he has several cities without religion. Also I can keep a monopoly for a while on this. So...

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Well, so then I'm thinking about how lucky I am that no one has DOWed me at cautious this whole when Wang daggers me on 25 BC... Crossbows coming at axemen = game over. But I think it's silly just to stop the game here, so I reload a few turns back and have no choice but to do this:

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So * in the books assuming I do win this. I could have loaded earlier and gotten that cow site he took (without cow access...) and then gifted him something like CoL, which I maybe should have done anyway but oh well. I figured giving up my monopoly on philo is penance enough. He ofc gives it away to roosevelt next turn for free...

I stop when I get CS and have revolted to HR+BUR. Here are the screens:

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GNP #2, not so bad!

 

[awilder]

Annoyingly, no one got feud until ~100BC, so maybe I should have gone elepult after all.

 

[awilder]

Actually on second thought, I'm going to take this loss and move on.

I will probably win Lib in this game, but then my production is lousy, and my tech rate doesn't have all that much to move up. I think the game is winnable but I'd rather not put in all the work for a reloaded win.

I made some pretty big mistakes on this map to file away for future deity tries:
-When I saw how many AIs were around, and saw the bronze near my cap, I should have settled there instead of my backyard for the horses. Settle backyard later.
-Need to be more aggressive taking barb cities. Axes early.
-I was really worried about tech rate, but now I see it's possible to have a tech or two to gift to neighbors and still be in the tech game. I was counting on religion, but one never came.

 

[kossin]

You should put a filler city to use the rice (irrigate it). Said city could help grow some cottages for the capital or just be a whipping horse for you later.

 

[Gwaja]

Aww... it was a good effort though! Sometimes it is just better start new and fresh, taking in the things that you've learned along the way.

In this game, you probably could have used more land. As it is, you are squeezed in between Wang, Cyrus, and Kublai...

 

[Dirk1302]

I find when I play philosophical leaders, I get one 'extra' GP (usually GS) before there are any good techs to bulb. I usually end up settling this guy. In the case of this game, as kossin said, my economy is too weak at the moment for an academy to outpace a settle at least in the time horizon until I get the second GS for academy.

I could have made an academy with this guy, and had the next one wait until I am in say education range, but then I would be having him sit around for 30-40 turns. I dunno that just feels wrong, but it's just based on guy feeling, no hard evidence.

I'm going to play a round; plan is to play until completion of TGlib or somewhere thereabouts.

I checked, you were at 50% at the time. Academy if played out right would have been way better than settling. I don't see your point about the second scientist you can bulb philo with it think? If you have mids (didn't check that) settling would be a bit better. Still an academy should net > 20 beakers extra very soon if you build your capital anywhere near right. No way you can compete against that with your settled spec. If you're at 0% and think you'll be there for a long time maybe you should settle.Then again i don't think being at 0% for a long time is very good play, if so that settled spec alone won't get you very far. I don't believe Kossin would have settled in your situation, he talked about an exceptional situation where you are in a deep pit where you desperately need to get to some key tech (alpha for instance so you can convert your hammers for a while), 50% slider is not a deep pit.

 

[Kid R]

-When I saw how many AIs were around, and saw the bronze near my cap, I should have settled there instead of my backyard for the horses. Settle backyard later.

This is one of the big things for me whenever I try deity. At lower settings if there's a a strong nearby backyard city it's often good to take it because it helps with rexing. On deity the land goes so fast you seem to end up with a better result just settling out from the capital. That's on standard maps - it might be different on maps with more land.

 

[awilder]

@dirk

During the 16 turn gap between gs #1 and #2 I am positive settling had a higher yield than academy. My break even level was 50%, which is not a crashed economy, but the point was the academy was giving me 4.25 bpt at that break even level when I settled, and something like 10-15 at the end, it averaged out to <11.25, ignoring the hammer from settling. Once I had decided the first two gs would settle+academy, the order was straightforward--settle first. That said, it could definitely be wrong not to have one of the first two bulb, in which case the other should def academy.

 

[ahcos]

Currently improving my deity gameplay myself, and especially training the first 100 turns, so this thread was a great read. you did pretty good given the not-so-easy situation, imo. when i've mastered the first 100 turns to my satisfaction i'll go and get my first win

Refering back to the discussion between Mylene and AbigCivFan on page 2, i'm totally with Mylene here. Not only is that city pretty far away and therefore hard to hold, it also eats up your workerturns and doesnt block anything at all. you'll have to use many workerturns early on just for moving between your cities, imo really not worth it. commerce isnt great on that map, but awilder isnt in a situation where he desperatly needs either the commerce or the happiness. the city itself is nice, but will leave alot of open space for AIs to settle and box you in with culture, and later on it's a target hard to defend because its horrible far away.
imo the disadvantages overweight the advantages here by far.

btw, did you use binary research while waiting for that GS? if so, i highly doubt that settling the first GS was even close in beaker reward compared to an academy. i always to it with PHI leaders, and even do it with non-PHI leaders on epic some times, especially when i'm not in a hurry for a certain tech oO

you made your mistakes, but you did some great moves too after all. and that declaration by wang kong was somewhat unfortunate, but oh well. It's Deity after all, right? (=

 

[Gwaja]

The other day, I was messing around and thought hey I will start up a Deity game. I did Fractal/Normal Speed/No Villages/No Huts/Random Leader roll, and I got this start:

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Since the blue circle was positioned 1NW of the settler, I moved the warrior 1NW to find:

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I don't know if there will be a lot of interest in playing as Frankie, but his trait combo is solid, and well... since he starts with Fishing and Agriculture, this start is actually pretty good one. Well.... much more than pretty good actually. And I don't even have to worry about getting Iron Working to utilize those juicy $$$$$. ^_^

2 resources that normally are on jungles... and they are ALL on regular flat grassland tiles!!

Probably a bit overpowering start, but hey this is Deity! And pay special attention to my leader name. ^_^ Yes, that's right. Have a laugh at it if you want, but that's what I will be mumbling to myself if I ever decide to try playing Deity right now.

So how about it? Maybe you can give this start a try to ease you into Deity?