Deity Fun II - Qin the Dazzling Man [Fractal, Random leaders, normal speed]

[Habitus]

I prefer Fractal for games only I am playing, normally for fun. Single Mass Maps (ie Pangaea and Inland Sea) work best for forum games as they are the best for comparing games due to more things being under player control over RNG (ie other landmass being a hindu lovefest vs 3 religion mass warfare)

 

[Htadus]

I prefer Fractal for games only I am playing, normally for fun. Single Mass Maps (ie Pangaea and Inland Sea) work best for forum games as they are the best for comparing games due to more things being under player control over RNG (ie other landmass being a hindu lovefest vs 3 religion mass warfare)

Hindu love fest can happen on Pangea too. The only reason to dislike fractal is what obsolete always complain about; The land distrbution some times tend to be favoring some AI (or the players occationally).

Tachy,

Spoiler :

I made a mess of my not so soon HA rush and ran it to a wall of units. The problem was I was not setup to chop/whip HA's due to low number of workers. By the time I had 10 HA, he had copper and iron connected. I took his poor ly guarded capital and the coastal city but that was that. I could not field HA fast enough.

So I will retry from the save and play the planned game selecting CoL and head to Liberate MT. Instead of the HA's I will chop my last 4 settlers. Bulb Philo the first chance I can trade CoL for Math, Alpha and perhaps Currency.

So I am 0 to 1 on my deity HA rushing/slowing may be a better statement.

 

[Habitus]

Hindu love fest can happen on Pangea too.

You have more control over it thou (both is possible stopping it forming and to breaking it up/using it yourself), there is nothing you can do if its on a different landmass to you

The only reason to dislike fractal is what obsolete always complain about; The land distrbution some times tend to be favoring some AI (or the players occationally).

While even rarer this does even happen on Pangaea. The only time this really effects things is in comparing games with other players (if more than one person can expand in to the extra area) or if you don't like games going on later than what even distrbution usually takes (most player playing at their comfort level can beat large AIs as the AI is bad at late era wars).

Even saying that, people should just play what they enjoy and if its not someone else 'thing' they just don't play it

 

[GKey]

This map proves, fractal is not that well balanced map script

Spoiler :

Lizzy blocked by rocks with 5 cities and Ramses surrounded by jungle with 7 cities, so SB and Willem rex easily to half of continent.

Playing this again. MT 680 AD, going to dominate continent, hope it will be enough for win, game is very laggy already.

 

[Manco Capac]

This map proves, fractal is not that well balanced map script

Spoiler :

Lizzy blocked by rocks with 5 cities and Ramses surrounded by jungle with 7 cities, so SB and Willem rex easily to half of continent.

Playing this again. MT 680 AD, going to dominate continent, hope it will be enough for win, game is very laggy already.

Spoiler :

Quite an iron will, am I right? Although the laggings, still want to retry!

MT 680 AD is good. I think I got it at 580 AD... something like that. Do you have Heroic Epic set up? Some ready HA's. In my game, I prepared 30 of these and a GMerchant plus accumulated gold did the job. I knew super advanced Willem plus 20 cities SB are gonna be my hardest challenge.

When I DoWed, two turns later, he got access to grenadiers.

In fact, SB was a puppet as I tried to get him friendly to bribe him against Willem (he accepts bribe only at friendly against annoyed rivals...what a douche!). The when I took care of Willem, I backstabbed him...

Hey, I want to see your progresses. What nobody upload their saves...far easier and time saving than writing summaries.

Good luck. Yes, this game is harder than the last installment as the next might be harder.
But it's still winnable.

 

[Manco Capac]

Why nobody is uploading their games.
Lymond, Htadus, Gkey, Pixie and the others.

Now I have better time, let's take at least a peek at PeteJ's game.

This map proves, fractal is not that well balanced map script

A truth nobody can debunk. Myself I know what kind of journey I'm in choosing fractal over other more fair mapscripts. But fractal at least offers sometimes surprises. And there is no : hmmm...this strat. will work all the time. In the other extreme side, isolation may happen, but on deity I give up for now.
After AW, isolation is the second worst.

But but but at least I don't throw maps I haven't tried first to the rage of everyone. The last one had receive positive comments for its inherent easiness.

 

[Htadus]

Tachy, I thought I did attach my save before the Oracle and I clearly did not. Once I get home, will do so. As for my HA rush attempt; there is no reason to embarass myself.

Once i play the CoL route, I will postt hat save.

 

[GKey]

Here.

Spoiler :

Yes it was 600AD MT.

Spoiler :

The way to go here would be ignore completely our awesome (not, at least not here) UU and go for monster bureaucracy capital ASAP. Lib MT
and win with Cuirassiers/Cavalry.
Quite frustrating, I feel cheating employing same tactic again and again, but early chocking/rushing is not recommended here
even with early Machinery IMHO. After all we can get nice chunk of land peacefully.


So I oracled CoL instead of MC this time (1520BC) and revolted into Cast immediately to make Academy in our awesome capital.



Usually I ignore Oxford, when going for MT rush, but we got very hammer rich land here. I haven't revolt from Cast for long
long time to avoid anarchy (enough happy without HR and I had Buddhism in only one city, so OR was not needed) and got all infra from chopping without slavery.


Rexed to 9 cities and captured one from barbs. Rexing plus oracle made me be short on workers for quite long,
therefore tech rate was not that good. Tons of forests really helped to catch up. I even saving forests in tundra
silver/deer city for future National Park (I know immediate benefit is much better, but otherwise city will be completely useless
and I wanted to make something unusual ).



8 forests - 8 free specialists and I hope for more forests to grow there (none grow from beginning of game though ).

Tech path after oracle was BW
- Aest (trade for many techs, notably Monarchy and Currency)
- Lit (Got GLib+NE in capital, no units of lvl4, so no HE though)
- Music (Bulb Philo and start golden age with free artist. Finally revolting into HR+Pacifism and got 2 more great scientists in capital)
- Civil Service (just in time to revolt into Buro+Slavery+OR before golden age end and finally whip last pieces of necessary infra)
- Paper (trade for Compass so I can bulb Liberalism)
- Education (1 bulb)
- Nationalism
- Liberalism (1 bulb then trade for Machinery and other staff)
- MT
-Gunpowder

Saved 3 forests for Taj, but not sure if I need it ASAP - I am going to whip bunch of cuirassiers in a few turns, so golden age will be a waste...
Plus I haven't capture MoM yet (and I will!)

With Mids, Hanging Gardens and MoM Moscow is a juicy target.



The plan is go and cap Stalin ASAP then go for Willem (He vassaled poor Ramses) and SB.

Btw I avoided trading with Willem so he is not tech monster in my game (his long war with Ramsy helped too). Teach situation is rather good.



If I mange to capitulate Stalin quick enough Willem will be not hard to deal with. SB is going to be a pain though.

As always Aest-Lit-Music-CS---Lib MT strategy works like a charm, but feels cheap. I'd love to see some different solid way to play the game. (I tried and failed )

Yes, fractal may be not well balanced, but can create some interesting land shapes, plus it's always nice to play something different.
Keep them coming Tachy .
Without BUFFY someone could volunteer himself to check the map for balance issues and even fix them through world-builder (remove these blocking mountains, etc).

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

Quite frustrating, I feel cheating employing same tactic again and again, but early chocking/rushing is not recommended here
even with early Machinery IMHO. After all we can get nice chunk of land peacefully.

The plan is go and cap Stalin ASAP then go for Willem (He vassaled poor Ramses) and SB.

As always Aest-Lit-Music-CS---Lib MT strategy works like a charm, but feels cheap. I'd love to see some different solid way to play the game. (I tried and failed )

Yes, fractal may be not well balanced, but can create some interesting land shapes, plus it's always nice to play something different.
Keep them coming Tachy .
Without BUFFY someone could volunteer himself to check the map for balance issues and even fix them through world-builder (remove these blocking mountains, etc).

Spoiler :

You really should have participated the first Deity Fun; that one had multiple approaches.
I often think easier maps offer muliplicity on how to win a map, while the hardest one thine (is that a verb? ) the paths to victory, especially military types.

From someone who played many many cuirassier rushes, I understand you want something but this is deity.

That sentence AZ he claimed struck me(even before I started deity for serious): "Deity often offers few alternatives and the strategies become redundant while on IMM I can choose the playstyle I want" or something like "I play too much according to a certain recipe...".
And looking the disportionate powers (BTW, Ramesses always suck at expansion, jungle or not), unfortunately, cuirassiers may happen the safest. I can envision after killing off Stalin, it is going to be 1000-1100 AD and I clearly remember Willem became really dangerous as he had Military Science. In your game, possibly, he can choose a more dangerous path.
As for SB, well, only his protective trait will save him, but he started to impress me as time goes; his tech rate was better and better. He could have won Physics if I didn't.

Stalin can be picked on early, but looking back, I really wonder if the fact he built GW and Mids really slowed him down. My second city went for wheat and silver (first ring of culture, ignoring deer), so I can beeline HBR.

Sometimes, when you feel overpowering the AI using a strat. that is too strong for their capacities of retaliation, challenge yourself in something uncommon. I could have chosen dom, but I decided to go space with corps along the huge number of cities to get an early date. Quite unfortunate it won't work because it is too much CPU consuming. I didn't realized how many people were stuck with older computers.

All in all, I can't see another strat. instead perhaps a modern war. But unlike TMIT, nobody likes them! Too tedious.

About choking, it's horrible on deity. Only few instances were succesful and a huge pool of results in the hall of shame. Each time I see AZ going for that route, I wonder if he will survive because the way he does it is sometimes really dangerous.

BTW, if you want something different, check the next one...different from the two last one definitely! You won't have the typical problems on deity but something different especially if military is the chosen path; I had to abort at the last minute.

Oh, btw, calling me Tachy is really spreading like a disease...since TMIT.
Now TMIT started K-mod and K-mod is spreading like a disease...or rather a remedy to AI asinine behaviour.

@people who were discussing about maps and fairness.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=450117

 

[GKey]

Going slowly mainly thanks to this thing



I am too lazy to make Civ start directly with BUFFY, so it's 2 restarts every time.

Spoiler :

Looks promising, Got Moscow with Mids and MoM just 1 turn before finished Taj and used my 2nd golden age to switch into Police state+Cast+Pacifisism+Free Market (lost Economy race though). Will get Great person in capital in 3 turns and then switch to Slavery/Theo, where I think to stay to the end.

1030AD




I really miss BULL with its hidden diplo modifiers. Just look at this:



Gilgamesh have -2 relations with me and +1 with his worst enemy Lis!
Does BUFFY contain old version of BULL or what? I did not find a way to configure it to change a look. (in ctrl-alt-o menu).

Somehow I managed to piss almost everyone by trading with their worst enemy. Most confusing when you trade with worst enemy before meeting civilization.

Tech situation is a bit uncertain. I haven't lost the lead yet, but AI's start to sprint out.



Going for Willem.

 

[Manco Capac]

^

Never saw that message...

Spoiler :

Errr...yes BUFFY doesn't show averaging of master/vassals attitude.
You have somehow to guess how just like I did. When I vassalized Stalin and Willem (NOT Sitting and Ramesses, I killed them instead), I managed to bring them up to friendly with Gilg and Suleiman thanks to superb factor: HR civic. Along some share wars too. And sometimes bait for far trade between vassals and soon AI friend and forced closed border (Liz).
I also admit I got lucky they were buddists just like me.

Shame they were shortly useful for tech trade.

There is another detaill that may un-help you: weak Stalin as vassal.
Vassal capitulation system has a common annoying excuse : "We're fine on our own!" based on average of powers. Liz already didn't help, but Stalin in will push more in to the bottom average power of all civs. Meaning Willem will be theoritically harder to vassalized.

Still keep going!

 

[GKey]

^^

Spoiler :

Hmm... I was always sure that even weak vassal increase your power rating.

Even with only 3 cities left unit spammer like Stalin might be helpful. I considered gifting him cities back to make him stronger, but then Moscow will suffer nonstop culture flips. Plus I do refrain from tech trades to slow down tech pace while I warring, so Stalin will be my only trade partner till I capture some more.

Btw BULL does not show hidden attitude for master-vassal, but it does show initial hidden modifiers, known as "The first impression is the lasting one".

In the screenshot in previous post Gilgamesh has +2 attitude towards Lis, yet she is his worst enemy. There have to be some hidden negative initial modifier.

 

[Manco Capac]

^^

Spoiler :

Hmm... I was always sure that even weak vassal increase your power rating.

Spoiler :

Or unless I did a misconception with letting alive and without master a vassal, which definitely lowers the average power rate and make vassaling more difficult.

For instance, it was only after losing 85% of his empire, SB realized capitulation was an option. That was ridiculous given the power and lands. I was either blaming Liz or my one city Stalin (which I stupidly kept for a happiness).

Now I'm unsure.

Ok, I understand now you meant the random initial diplo modifiers at the beginning of the game.
Sadly, because there is no way via simple look or some indirect calculus to get those modifiers, they forbid knowledge of these diplo modifiers.

Like score position, developping civs should work together, first impression, etc.

 

[PeteJ]

Now I have better time, let's take at least a peek at PeteJ's game.

Spoiler :

Any thoughts? Looking back at my save, I'm not really convinced that I played this very well. 475BC and still only 4 horse archers seems a bit slow, plus I focused more on cottages than maybe I should have if I had been going for HA rush from the beginning. Still, if I can successfully rush Stalin and take his good cities I think I'll be in good shape. Plus having COL, monarchy, and almost currency before my rush is a very good thing.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I've been busy cooking an Immortal Elizabeth, Hemishpere, Always War map but I played this one to around 450 AD. I made a minor mistake (didn't notice ennemy stack next to a city ; moved my own stack out of that city ; lost 3 wounded but well promoted Cho-Kos), decided to reload from an autosave...
But meanwhile I also started the all new LHC and thus erased my autosaves... Well, now it's not 3 turns I have to replay but 15 or 20 or is it more ?

Anyways, here's how it went until 175 AD :

Spoiler :

Moved the warrior 1SW, spotted some food, settled 1SW as well. So I don't have the same wine spot as you do. Decided to go for a standard openning (no Oracle but Pottery + AH).
Beijing's location leaves room for 2 close and fine cities --> went for 3 Libraries. After settling the 4th, I got moderately boxed in :

Spoiler :

I kept the possibility to bulb Machinery with a scientist, which I did in 450 BC. Meanwhile, I settled some more cities to increase my production.
This probably delayed my attack date a little but also made it easier to spare the bigger cities from whip anger and sustain commerce.

Spoiler :

Slowly but surely assembled a force of Cho-Ko Nus and pondered an attack vs Sitting Bull or Stalin. It definitely would have been possible to just tech up but...
Both were backwards and I could use a little more land. Stalin had wonders but was pleased with me, the Bull was annoyed and wouldn't talk since I accepted to stop trading with him.
Ramesses peace-vassaled to the game leader : Van Oranje.
So I took my small stack from the NA borders to the Russian ones, then Russia got Feudalism and built Chichten Itza... So I marched the stack back to NA borders again. While this may seem bad, the 10 or so turns it took to march the army back and forth actually guaranteed I had enough troops when I declared war on NA :

Spoiler :

2 stacks highlighted : 1 in the city, 1 next to it.

I got access to Theocracy (Shwedagon Paya's courtesy) so there are 5xp X-Bows. 1st attacker got Combat + Cover and the next ones would have favourable odds with Drill. Typically lost 1 to 2 units per city (typically defended by 4 units). Sitting Bull fell fast but that is my last save to date, now
I used my main army to march east, north-east and a few guys to stick in the south. They would clear some units in the field, fix units in southern (crappy) cities and attract reinforcements there. Which left Cahokia with a 4 units garrison... Very much worth it to have random troops running around.

Stalin also offered Marble for trade so I could snatch a few wonders :

Spoiler :

Pre build-up and post build-up saves attached.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Can somebody give me a Cho-Ko-Nu 101?

Spoiler :

I really can't make them work for me. If you get them before your opponent gets feudalism or machinery (and so long as they don't have elephants - well horse archers are a slight pain also). Anyway... supposing your opponent doesn't have any of those easily gotten techs/units I'm sure they are very effective! I know there's the whole avoid fishing and Great Scientist your way to them... IME somethimes that is effective sometimes not. On this occasion I simply teched my way to machinery. I had just 5 cities which helped the tech rate and got machinery in 25AD which felt reasonably fast. This wasn't a beeline, I started off going for aesthetics to keep up in tech. May be that was a mistake. I know you can get it a lot earlier with the Great Scientist gambit. I waited until I got construction and a few catapults before attacking. I'm sure that was a mistake. I only really needed the catas to take down cultiural defences and without the bombard promotion they are very slow at that In hidsight it was a mistake to go for Willem I think. He teched to Machinery and Feudalism quickly and his front city had 100% cultural defence (or whatever the correct term is). But he's always a juicy target... founding religions, building wonders tech whoring.

Definitely bulb Machinery (or even Oracle it).
It would be late to bulb it with the 2nd GS so skip the Academy and bulb with the 1st.
Get several libraries to build the Academy later on but not too late.
Cottage if possible, there are a lot of requirements to open the bulb.
Oracle CoL / MC if possible. CoL enables 2 fast GS provided size 7+ cities. MC is on the right path.
Don't attack into Longbows without Catapults. Catapults are needed to take away cultural defenses and provide cheaper sacrificial troops. If you don't wanna suffer heavy losses, that is.
With Qin, get (most) Forges running before building troops.
Once the war is started, promote your troops.
EDIT : Probably worth adding : don't go 100% Cho-Kos. They're very expensive compared to swords, spears and archers. All of those are fine support troops.
Also, upgrading an Archer to a Cho-Ko costs 125g (if I'm not mistaken). Maybe a few upgrades are conceivable (especially if Caste merchants are run).

Not sure that is a proper 101 but it is my take on it.

 

[GKey]

@BIC

Well, my Cho-Ko-Nu's attempt vs Stalin while successful was a bad move. I am greatly disappointed by Chock's, can't get why are they so popular here. Each city cost me ~10 units which is bad.

Hope you share with us your AW map!

 

[GKey]

OK, I quit my laggy game and call this a win

While there can be surprises, bad luck strikes etc, losing from this position will be a hard job.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@BIC

Well, my Cho-Ko-Nu's attempt vs Stalin while successful was a bad move. I am greatly disappointed by Chock's, can't get why are they so popular here. Each city cost me ~10 units which is bad.

Hope you share with us your AW map!

There's some great research potential on this map, yes. So early warfare is probably not worth it if the investment required is large. On Deity, AD warfare with X-Bows is a gamble : one's hoping an AI will remain backwards and be an easy target.
If you're gonna pump 40 units or more... eek ! It hurts. If it's only 20, then it is a different story. Sounds situational and luck dependent.

Maybe Cho-Ko Nu's are very popular on CFC... I wouldn't know about that. As for me, I mainly wanted to build them for fun, 'cause they're the unique and I'm not familiar with X-Bow rushes. I also wanted early Pavillions but ended up delaying Drama more than I had hoped. Also lost Sistine, which I would have loved to get.


@ AW map : I have trouble finding a map that is easy enough I want a cute map. But, yeah, I'll share it

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

Any thoughts? Looking back at my save, I'm not really convinced that I played this very well. 475BC and still only 4 horse archers seems a bit slow, plus I focused more on cottages than maybe I should have if I had been going for HA rush from the beginning. Still, if I can successfully rush Stalin and take his good cities I think I'll be in good shape. Plus having COL, monarchy, and almost currency before my rush is a very good thing.

Promise. I'll comment your game. But tomorrow. Had a rough day today.

This post will be edited. Screw this. I'll do it now.

-------------------------------------------------------

Spoiler :

Well, first, you are not in a desesperate pinch. Indeed, HA's rush is definitely too late now unless you are willing to step in a tedious war with agressive stalin. My game and yours are barely comparable because:
- I settled agressively the wheat and silver to get commerce tile and beeline HBR asap. I got it ~1280 BC. And I caught Stalin pants down. He only had archers.
Mids kept him busy and GW too. And that site I claimed as second site changed his settling plans, so he never settled by copper in a direct way. And his iron was claimed too late because of the late border pop.

So, not only he did not bother with Mids and he got iron and copper along several units, I think from that point, you either capture his weakest cities and claim peace (but the risk of peacevassaling is high) or gun for cuirassiers. The lack of Mids makes him less attractive too. Once I saw the Mids message around 1000 BC in my game, it was ascertained he had to fall.

I really think your game can be a winning one because:
mainly unilateral religious block.
Ramsesses will help you in tech trading once capitulated (he helped me a bit in any case).
You will encounter another unknown AI soon...
Just trade and make your way up to cuirassiers.

Random thoughts:

Vandal is a cute defense spot against Stalin if he goes Wheoon. I think better farm instead in case. Avoiding future cottage pillaging.
I think I would have kept the GProphet for GA. Because Willem is infecting the whole world, Confu won't be popular ever, so no extension of shrine power. Music will likely fall into unknown civ's hands.

And HA's in stock is never bad as, after getting GMerchant, you may upgrade them into cuirassiers.

Try work non river cottage for capital. I fell into the same trap too. 1 food > 1 more commerce.

Ganzhou is an example of a city working so-so tiles (like lake and forest) and better help capital for future super bureaucratic capital.

Anyways, I think you shouldn't throw the towel yet. And if you help Willem has Shwedagon Paya. Sure it is risky to see him fall into free religion (he will do it anyway) and that moment will bring apart SB and Willem. Could help you to trigger a war via WHEEON. And if SB is annoyed with Willem and you friendly, then you can bribe him against Willem. This is what I did before backstabbing SB as a good friend...a la Shaka.