[BTS] Stumbling back at Deity

[Pangaea]

I haven't played the game for around half a year, until I started on a low-level Game of the Month a few days ago. Coming back to the game has been strange, but as usual it hooks me in. I'm honestly not very comfortable at Deity, and usually don't find all that much fun due to the few options one have compared to lower difficulties (immortal alone is like a different game). But maybe it should be tried out anyway. What better way to come back to the game than to have my face stuck deep in bloody mud!

This is the only start I generated, and it popped up with Hatshepsut, which is considered a strong leader. It caused me some consternation and I wondered about re-rolling, but let's go. Maybe there won't be horses nearby, so we can play the leader instead of the UU

Quite regular settings.

Spoiler :

The map looks okay I think. Where would you settle and move the warrior?

Spoiler :

With COP26 starting any moment, a surplus of forests is nice I guess

Personally I don't like to settle or found cities on green hills, but it's not like there are any options here without spending a turn, so maybe SIP is best? The PH south of cow can be an option I suppose, and then it makes sense to move the warrior there first to check if there is anything south. Moving away from the river may not be wise, though, as typically we need some commerce (cottages), and there is nothing on display right now.

Thoughts?

Feel free to play along I suppose, don't know how dedicated I can be with real life getting in the way, but if you do, please post updates in spoiler tags so others (and I) can play without getting information we shouldn't have.

Edit: Game two: Alexander of Greece

 

[AcaMetis]

My first instinct is to check whether the empty grass hill 1E of the PH reports Fresh Water, as a test to see whether that water tile is likely to be a Lake or coast, and if the latter I'd be weary enough of moving towards the coast to SIP. Well, after sending the Warrior to check out the situation on the PH, of course. If there's double wet corn and gems hiding in the fog than south we go.

In all likelihood this means that settling the PH is the optimal choice. It is a bit short on commerce, true, but Egypt has A+ starting techs and settling the plains hill means settling a second city 1N(E?) of settler starting point, which can share food tiles with the capital.

 

[jnebbe]

What's COP26?

 

[Pangaea]

What's COP26?

It's a climate summit that opens this weekend (I think) in Glasgow.

 

[Pangaea]

My first instinct is to check whether the empty grass hill 1E of the PH reports Fresh Water

The water that can very faintly be seen over in the east, is in fact a lake. There is "fresh water" over the hill.

I'm still hesitant to move away from the river here, but much depends on what the warrior will reveal. Maybe I should just fire up the game and move the warrior there, and report again? Might be more fruitful to see what can be down south/south-east, and it's probably a better option than the other hill (SW).

Can also say, as part of my hesitation, is that the two tiles north of the settler are naked. 2N and 2N1E. Looks like those are the only tiles (with SIP) that can give extra resources (I'm kinda ignoring forested deer and such by default, because it's so rare).

Edit: map after warrior move

Spoiler :

Hmm, nothing terribly interesting down there I suppose.

Would you still favour moving onto the PH?

 

[Pangaea]

Spoiler Warrior moved :

Things may change if moving to the PH because then there are two cows, but if SIP, I'm thinking of going directly for BW and skipping AH. The worker can't do much besides farm the corn anyway (thankfully we start with the wheel). There are the two surprise tiles north that can give something nice, but other than that, it's chopping and more chopping here.

If the river goes a little further north, city 2 may fit up there, without the need for roads to connect cities. Otherwise the desert hill may be okay, which then can have two cows for food, if there is nothing else. Desert right next to jungle is a bit weird, but why not

PH are always nice, though, and maybe that advantage is still better here? Hmmm

 

[AcaMetis]

IIRC Deer can only spawn on Tundra tiles anyway, so if it were on one of the fogged over forested tiles it wouldn't be a tile to write home about anyway.

Seeing the spoiler (which, eh, you might want to put in a spoiler block for people who want to play along),

Spoiler :

yeah, although I'd probably SIP I do still think that the PH is better in terms of optimal play.

 

[Pangaea]

Seeing the spoiler (which, eh, you might want to put in a spoiler block for people who want to play along),

Good point. Hopefully I got it covered up now

Spoiler :

I tend to not move away from SIP all that often, because it's usually a fine spot due to map generation rules. So I tend to want something really good to excuse the move, which I'm not really seeing here. The main thing would be the PH in itself, and an extra cow I suppose. Though most likely neighbouring cities will need to grab at least one cow anyway, as Deity AIs spread like wildfire. Mainly I'd be concerned about commerce. Though it should also be said that by moving to the PH, there MAY be a surprise in the east.

I should probably wait a bit before doing anything else, and see if other people have more ideas as well.

 

[Fippy]

Hiya, it's tempting but i would pass on the ph.
Those 2 non-forested green river tiles north have a hmmm ~50% chance maybe? to hide something good.

 

[Gressulf]

@AcaMetis
YDRC (You don't remember correctly)
In my current Ragnar save (and Hannibal save before that), I have (had) plains Deer and Fur. Map script is Shuffle though. For Grassland though, I have never seen Deer spawn, apart from on the Borealis map script.

Spoiler :

Ok... No hijacking of thread...
On the start (my two Immortal cents) after Warrior reveal...
I would move 1N and settle there. The river seems to be moving further up, and it would be good to claim some more river tiles for the Capital

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Deer normally spawns on tundra, but if that tundra is in a player's starting area, it gets converted to plains.

 

[Gressulf]

Deer normally spawns on tundra, but if that tundra is in a player's starting area, it gets converted to plains.

I had no idea, but makes sense from the map creation rules point of view.

 

[Pangaea]

Those 2 non-forested green river tiles north have a hmmm ~50% chance maybe? to hide something good.

After briefly looking over things again, and not really liking the southern move all that much, I decided to SIP:

Spoiler :

Suppose it's best for the worker to go to northern corn first. It gives one extra food and a commerce, despite coming online a turn later than dry corn. Two turns moving between them due to the hill city, but what are you gonna do. Then Mining->BW so we can do something with this land besides farming.

Edit: Those trees look like 'tundra' trees, or wintery trees, so we are probably quite far north. It's a tropical map so that can explain the jungle nearby.

 

[Pangaea]

I played 10 turns.

Spoiler :

Demographics, for those that are interested

Spoiler :

To me it looks like no charismatic civs, probably no expansive either? And one creative civ

The warrior moved onto the desert hill first, then probably a small mistake moving 1S as that didn't really reveal anything else, and then moved east and north to check out FP and such. Also ran into Stalin t5 and Saladin t6. Changed EPs to Saladin because Stalin is a lousy trader at 80% techs known.

T10 map

Spoiler :

Looks like all of the north, bar perhaps one tile, will be auto fogbusted by the city, so that is nice. No need to scout there really. Being up against the coast can be nice, as AIs won't steal land from that direction too. I don't know anything about the west yet, and looks like some jungle to the south. Stalin is close to the east, but the borders is his 2nd city so no immediate culture pressure.

Being creative, the capital will expand borders again pretty quickly, so probably no need to scout the western coast either. The city will take care of that soon enough. I'm thinking about parking the warrior on the forested hill between us and Stalin, and possibly found city 2 NW of pigs. It feels kinda wrong to not go south to claim land, but for now it seems like a fine spot to claim anyway, and to do so before Stalin does.

I'm stopping here for now, so what would you guys do with the warrior? Park him to fogbust or go SW to check out the land south of the capital?

 

[AcaMetis]

Deer normally spawns on tundra, but if that tundra is in a player's starting area, it gets converted to plains.

I thought it might be like desert Incense turning into Plains in a starting capital's BFC! I'm going to call myself "technically correct" .

Spoiler :

Those trees look like 'tundra' trees, or wintery trees, so we are probably quite far north. It's a tropical map so that can explain the jungle nearby.

The trees around your capital are indeed the colder pine trees, and up north you can actually see snow-capped ones, so yes, you're pretty close to Tundra. Although on a Tropical map that doesn't mean much, either you're in the middle of the jungle or you're close to tundra in that case.

To me it looks like no charismatic civs, probably no expansive either? And one creative civ

30K soldiers as the start on Deity is code for Mansa, isn't it? Looks like you'll have a fast teching field unless the world is covered with warmongers who consider Mansa their worst enemy.

 

[civac]

Can deer spawn on forest tiles naturally?

 

[Pangaea]

Can deer spawn on forest tiles naturally?

Yes, this is quite common.

 

[krikav]

What better way to come back to the game than to have my face stuck deep in bloody mud!

Thats correct! Nothing beats getting beaten up by the AI.


It's good that I wasn't around yesterday, because I would have almost certainly moved to the PH gaining the second cow.
Losing out on the wet corn would have been bad.

How about 1E of the pigs? Stalin never seems to tech myst in my games so stealing that corn is certainly possible. But have to have some plan to survive if he becomes angry.
A more modest settlement is 2W of the pigs, that way you can develop cottages for capital, share the corn and just mine the pig.

I think I would want to move up with the warrior and scout the northern coast right now anyway, the circling around the capital anti-clockwise along the coast and take up some fogbusting position in the west/southwest.


*Edit*
Oh, and welcome back @Pangaea, we have missed you!
*/Edit*

 

[Nick723]

Welcome back @Pangaea !

I don’t have much to add on current situation, looking good so far

Spoiler One small micro question :

Is it worth building a road 1N (or 1NW) of capital in between improving the corns? Only loses one turn of improved corn and would allow for faster movement later / a connected city north.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Re: roading:

Spoiler One small micro question :

Unless you can see an immediate benefit of the road (like, would save a settler turn for next settled city coming in the next few turns, or creates trade route, or some other concrete benefit), focus on the 'power tiles' for worker improvements.

1 turn faster corn = 2 more food in the city, which soon enough will be the rounding difference for growth 1 turn sooner. This is quite possinly could lead to whipping a settler 1 turn faster, etc.

Also remember that each *future* worker turn is slowed by this. In many cases this would make the first chop slower, which again could be 1 lost turn for your first settler.