Deity spying

[shyuhe]

Since there's no active deity game in the SG forum right now, I thought I'd start one up. The variant is simple - no research slider after alphabet (and code of laws if we don't get the great wall). Here are the settings:



And the map:


I hope there are enough brave souls willing to join me on this one!

Roster:
shyuhe
open
open
open
open

 

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm not brave enough to follow your lead, but I'll lurk for the learning.

 

[kossin]

Sounds fun, count me in!

 

[obsolete]

No slider, but we can run scientists right?

Should be easy enough. Let's get started before Civ V comes out.

 

[shyuhe]

Wooo, 3! We can start once we get another I think. Yes we can run scientists to bulb techs if necessary.

 

[obsolete]

I am curious why did you chose this terrible leader? Ghandi is King for this sort of thing.

 

[shyuhe]

Gandhi is too strong of a leader to be honest. I thought Charlie would serve as a good handicap for us

 

[kossin]

Further incentive for more cities and some Rathauses I guess

 

[shyuhe]

Ok, we might just have to start with 3 players and see how it goes. I don't think we're picking up anybody else for the time being.

Where do yo guys want to settle? The three spots I'm thinking of are 1E, 1SW, and 2W1N. If we're going to make a serious play at GW, settling in place is a non-starter. Then again, GW on deity is risky business so a more traditional opening may pay off better.

 

[Duckweed]

Not a sign up.

Settle on the corn, it's dry and will get pig in BFC.

1E looks nice.

Good luck, guys.

 

[kossin]

^^ Corn is irrigated via lake.

SW looks like the best spot at first glance but it has no production whatsoever. (is there hills to be seen in the fog? hard to say from the screenshot)

Leave pigs to a future city, it will reduce the initial techs we need to get right away.

I'd go 1E for the production, river, forests and fp.

 

[shyuhe]

1SW gets the tiles but has no production. I think I'll scout for seafood and if there's nothing there, settle 1E. Tech order, I'm thinking agriculture first and I'll pass off after doing some initial scouting.

 

[kossin]

While we're considering seafood, there's also NW as a possible site. Less water tiles, some fp's, some hills and fresh water from the lake. We do lose 1 forest however.

 

[shyuhe]

Sent the scout to the coast and found clams. Not worth burning a turn and a forest, so I settled 1E. The scout followed the coast east popping two huts for minor gold. Here's what it looks like:



The gold/pig/fish is a nice spot for city #2 with food and hammers. It looks like our east is a penninsula so our scout should followed the coast heading west.

I think tech should go mining--masonry. We can't build the GW without mines.

Kossin, you're up!

 

[Jet]

GW on deity is risky business so a more traditional opening may pay off better.

Lurker's: Agreed!

 

[kossin]

Got it.

Looks like we've got our 6 cities pretty much guaranteed here with that backland to fill.

For TGW I'm assuming we'd go Mining>Masonry>BW ?
I'd like to hear obsolete on this, I don't usually try for early wonders that much.

Once concern however: we might be isolated or across a water gap from the closest neighbor.

 

[shyuhe]

We're on continents, so unless we got some mutant map, there should be some neighbors to the west.

I think that order is right. It's kind of a crapshoot as to whether we'll get the wonder in time on deity though. If one of the industrious leaders is in the game, our tech order won't even matter...

 

[obsolete]

I'd like to hear obsolete on this, I don't usually try for early wonders that much.

You won't like my wonder-advice. To be honest, the only real leaders worth going for TGW here are industrious. The only NON-IND exception is Ghandi, which could get it quite easy. Unfortunately it seems Shyuhe wanted a hard game, so whatever experience I've had in the past in this area is now thrown out the window. Just great Shyuhe...

Now i will spend the next half hour or so looking at the current save to see what I can salvage from our start...

 

[obsolete]

Alright, after taking a look, it think TGW is a big no-no here. We don't even stat with mining, thanks to stupid hunting tech (yuk). Too long to get to masonry, too long to get to chopping and whipping... We'd have to build the wall at full price, no ind or stone. We don't even start on a plains hill. It's just bad.

Furthermore, is the relative cost. Getting the wall costs us much more than anyone else on the board because of our IMP trait. Its' what.. worth 3 early settlers..? You know how costly that is for us?

I guess we have to cut our losses, and after mining to straight to archery. AS much as I god damned hate archery and ALWAYS avoid it (and hunting) in my games, we might as well get it since we already have useless hunting. We could finally get some use out of our protective trait, and hopefully barb-farm up to a level 4 unit. Let's try not to fog-bust too much, let the barbs come. The only problem is when we get barb cities on hills.

No marble so far? I guess the great library is definitely a no-no here too. The only real wonder that looks like it has a decent return on investment for us would be TGLH. WE'd have less than 50% shot though, but it would be a smaller risk with very high reward. That gold-fish spot to the east would be the place (settle on plains hill). We need sailing early anyway.

Haven't met anyone yet... that's good. We should easily settle all this with imp pretty quick, and at least 2 gold sites to feed the maintenance. We do have to find some crappy spot to leave some AI's though. Or maybe settle a horsehockey spot, but good enough that an AI will take as a gift from us early, then we are set.

Since we have such cheap settlers, I also think we should get some galleys out and gift a lot of squeeze cities to AI's forcing tight borders.

BTW, the nice thing about TROJAN cities in these spy games, is we don't have to worry about our culture flipping the city back to us. It basicaly screws them over in infinite revolts. Thanks to some genious who thought preventing back-flips that was a GOOD thing. Haha! When will Firaxis ever learn?

 

[obsolete]

I've been doing some more thinking. If you really want, we can still GAMBLE on it. We need to have the thing built before 2600 to have a decent shot at it. That gives us around 25 turns or so from this point. Doesn't look good, we are only researching mining now, then we need mason, and have to also build the mines. In the end, I think we'd only have what.. a little over 10 turns to get 150 hammers into the thing? And that is assuming we don't have barb emergency problems or other issues to suddenly worry about.

On the other hand, sometimes it takes them to around turn 45 or more. So, that opens up an opportunity here. If we can get the 2 grassland hills, and 1 plains hill mined, in combo with our 1 city hammer, we could get the wall in 14 turns of production.


** Edit ** ------

Alright I'm back after some crunching. Odds are against us but lets go gamble here. We unfortunately come 4 turns behind from where I'd like to be, but at least if they are behind this time around by 4 turns then we get it (unless it's a super early build which can happen).

7 Turns from now we get mining, then with 20% disc on Mason that's 8 more turns. We can start in T15 from here. So after worker we immediately work on warriors for happy cap and barb busting/fighting. Lets try to get this wall un-interrupted, we are already behind.

** Edit ** ------

Decided to take another look at it. I fear even my crunching was too generous. If we hook up the corn first, that will leave us only for enough time to get one mine up when we finish masonry. Too late. It would take another 10 turns to get the other mines up.