Deities on Earth

[vadalaz]

Hi all,

I'm looking for players to join me for a Deity game on a Huge Earth map from the YNAEMP map pack with 18-22 AIs, all with true starting locations and hand-picked so that everyone has room to expand, yet noone's really isolated.

Spoiler Example of a 20-Civ lineup that seems to work pretty well :

America, Shoshone, Aztecs, the Inca, Brazil, Morocco, Songhai, Ethiopia, the Zulu, England, Rome, Sweden, Russia, the Ottomans, India, Mongolia, China, Japan, Siam, Indonesia.

CSs set to be ~5 tiles apart, TSL only.

I don't have any experience with this map, and I've never played against more than 11 AIs, so to me this is new and exciting. It's going to be a long and challenging game, and an interesting one to approach as a team, I think.

Please let me know if you're interested and feel free to post any suggestions on how to make this a great experience! Which civ do you think would be the most interesting to play here? Which victory condition should we go for?

Update

We'll be playing this start as Ethiopia on a Huge Earth map from the YNAEMP pack, Deity difficulty and standard speed: View attachment 590308

The team:

Shark Diver
raider980
Nizef
beetle
vadalaz

AI list:

Spoiler :

America, the Shoshone, the Maya, the Aztecs (moved to SA for balance), Brazil, the Inca, Morocco, Songhai, the Zulus, Rome, England, Sweden, the Huns, Russia (moved east for balance), Mongolia, China, Japan, Arabia, India, Siam, Indonesia.

Map with AI locations: View attachment 589977

 

[Shark Diver]

You know I can't resist. Count me in.

 

[raider980]

Sound very fun, I'm in. As for the civ to play, I think definitely one in the Old World. And I think location is probably more important than the civs abilities.

I've watched a few of the AI only games online and I think that without some additional civs in certain places, some AI gets out of control and become a runaway. These are only what I've noticed so hopefully others chime in. For example:

• If we play an old world civ:
  • With only the Inca and Brazil in S. America, I think Brazil becomes a runaway.
  • Probably need more than two civs in N. America or one of them could run away. (Not the Iroquois or they will spam cities all over N. America and will definitely be a runaway.)
• There is a lot of room in Asia, its gigantic. May need more civs there than in the example above.

 

[Shark Diver]

Sound very fun, I'm in. As for the civ to play, I think definitely one in the Old World. And I think location is probably more important than the civs abilities.

I've watched a few of the AI only games online and I think that without some additional civs in certain places, some AI gets out of control and become a runaway. These are only what I've noticed so hopefully others chime in. For example:

• If we play an old world civ:
  • With only the Inca and Brazil in S. America, I think Brazil becomes a runaway.
  • Probably need more than two civs in N. America or one of them could run away. (Not the Iroquois or they will spam cities all over N. America and will definitely be a runaway.)
• There is a lot of room in Asia, its gigantic. May need more civs there than in the example above.

Interesting topic.

I'm thinking in a game with 5 human players, any 2 of us could take down any runaway Civ.

 

[vadalaz]

Sound very fun, I'm in. As for the civ to play, I think definitely one in the Old World. And I think location is probably more important than the civs abilities.

I've watched a few of the AI only games online and I think that without some additional civs in certain places, some AI gets out of control and become a runaway. These are only what I've noticed so hopefully others chime in. For example:

• If we play an old world civ:
  • With only the Inca and Brazil in S. America, I think Brazil becomes a runaway.
  • Probably need more than two civs in N. America or one of them could run away. (Not the Iroquois or they will spam cities all over N. America and will definitely be a runaway.)
• There is a lot of room in Asia, its gigantic. May need more civs there than in the example above.

Yeah, I see what you mean. There are some problem areas. A civ in NA can get all of Alaska and most of Canada, Brazil and the Inca have enough space in SA for both of them to become powerhouses, Shaka most likely dominates Africa, Russia and Mongolia get a ton of space. But I think runaways are pretty much unavoidable on this map and it's just part of the challenge. Raging barbs might slow down the civs that get too much space, at least a little bit.

 

[Nizef]

If my gaming computer doesn´t allow it, I might have to step down at some point in time. But if that is acceptable to you, then I will join for sure. I agree that a civ from the old world would be more fun. Sweden, Russia and Indonesia are safe bets while Ethiopia would be a tough challenge. India could be my "joker" suggestion. The Iroquois could be included, if their starting position is manually manipulated.

 

[vadalaz]

I hope the late game lag isn't too bad, but I fear it might be our biggest challenge to overcome here. If everyone settles 10 cities, that's 200 cities on the map already, not counting the CSs. I think I should review the AI lineup, and favour AIs with low expansion bias if possible.

I like the India suggestion, the initial happiness hit from the UA is less painful on Huge maps. Nice UU, good starting location.

Sweden could be fun if we manage to get a lot of DoFs for a massive boost to great people generation.

Russia is a production powerhouse, gets a ton of land and probably like 15 ruins.

Indonesia can get to Australia faster than others, the free luxuries are great and the UB as well. A bit slow to start though, having to wait for Optics.

Ethiopia should get a fantastic start with Mt Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria nearby... And the Zulu to the south. It's an interesting choice, for sure. It's also one of the very few civs that we'd actually have a chance to get a religion with.

 

[Nizef]

Ethiopia should get a fantastic start with Mt Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria nearby... And the Zulu to the south. It's an interesting choice, for sure. It's also one of the very few civs that we'd actually have a chance to get a religion with.

I was thinking along the same lines. An alternative would be to use the Celts and leave Elizabeth on the sidelines.

 

[vadalaz]

I suppose I could move some of the starting settlers with IGE to create a more balanced map, but still keep things somewhat close to true starting locations. How about this:

Changes:

Removed the Ottomans, added the Maya, the Huns and Arabia.
Moved Russia ~10 tiles to the east, moved the Aztecs to South America so that there's a troublemaker on the continent.

All other civs keep the default TSLs. What do you guys think?

 

[raider980]

That does look better. Although, I have seen IGE mess up settlers when moved; they just stand there and never settle the second city. You mentioned modded civs before. Another option is to include some modded civs to take up that space. I know TPangolin's Inuit works with TSL and would take up the north part of NA. There is a Siberia mod but I've never seen it work and don't know if it works with TSL, it does say it works with YNAEMP.

In the end I think it'll be fine any way we go; like you said, runaways are probably inevitable and a part of the challenge.

 

[Nizef]

This looks good.

I have nothing against the use of modded civs, but maybe this first try should go ahead with the in-game civs.

 

[Nizef]

Are there other suggestions for which civ to play?

 

[vadalaz]

Well, my original top picks were Russia and India, but now I see the appeal of Ethiopia too. Maybe we should consider one of the civs with great UUs as well. England would be particularly interesting, I think. We'd get a slow but safe start, then start catching up with our extra spy and totally balanced unique units.

 

[Nizef]

Well, my original top picks were Russia and India, but now I see the appeal of Ethiopia too. Maybe we should consider one of the civs with great UUs as well. England would be particularly interesting, I think. We'd get a slow but safe start, then start catching up with our extra spy and totally balanced unique units.

England is definitely acceptable to me. Those "totally balanced" UUs will of course give us more options. But it depends a little on the starting location: if we have a low production capital the whole game might be a pain.

 

[vadalaz]

Rolling maps for this takes a long time, because you can't use the restart button (the map spawns zero resources then), and the game doesn't memorize the list of AIs in the setup menu, so I have to select the 21 of them manually every time.

India starts are pretty good. Russia gets a lot of land but most of it is mediocre, and England unfortunately gets very little production.

I got this start with Ethiopia though:

Spoiler :

Would this suit everyone?

 

[Nizef]

Wow. Yeah. Victoria and Salt. Even with Shaka next door, this looks good! Let´s go with this one! And if we somehow get teared apart, we can always have another game with India, don´t we?

 

[raider980]

It does look nice. And defensible, which is a good thing because Shaka has no one else nearby to attack!

Maybe make a post in the EDGE thread about this game to see if more want to join? I doubt many people look at this part of the forum anymore.

 

[Nizef]

What do you think, vadalaz? I could post something in the EDGE thread to attract more players. How many do we need? If it is only the three of us, we could perhaps do with 1-2 more players?

 

[vadalaz]

Sure, go ahead. I think succession games are usually done with 4-6 players.

 

[Shark Diver]

I'm in.