A difficult deity map...

[gramm87]

At least for me
I randomed this start (pangea, standard, deity, random climate & sea level, random leader), and I thought I'd give it a try since it looked like fun...

Spoiler :

A hundred turns later I have to give up, my rush date completely fell apart and my target has longbows and a very powerful military.
So I was wondering if anyone was willing to give it a shot! I'm very curious how you guys would play this map.

About me... Spoiler Alert, hope you'll try the map first, I thought it was a good map, and a *lot* of fun neighbors

Spoiler :

Sadly I only have one screenshot, because I reloaded initial for the other screenshot and it deleted the autosaves

So it's an interesting terrain, I went aggriculture->mining->BW->AH, so I could chop settler while teching AH. By the time I revealed the horsies, they were already settled by Carthage.
My first city was the 2x gold, which built a monument (working 1 improved gold).
I SIP because I guessed by zooming in that the tile 2N1E had a food bonus (no forest).

With the pressure and jungle NW I kind of got "mentally locked" into going for a rush (in fact I was going for archer catapult), then I seeing I could trade for horsies or elephants I wanted a more normal rush, but somehow I completely messed the timing up and teched Construction at ~100t... With only 3 cities... I did lose some time teching Hunting+Archery, because I was afraid of barbs (which was a good idea, got attacked by stacks of archer barbs).

So yeah, not so happy with my performance, considering all the gold...

In the end maybe I should have gone mids (stone + tons of forests), but then what? Gold is worth as much as a GS, minus the GPP...

I neglected 2 barbs cities NW, I thought anyway it's jungle, I guess I should have attacked them (with what? HA using traded horses maybe?) to get to 5 cities... That would have turned the game in a more classic cuirassier rush (pyramids powered)...

PS: attacked Rome because they were at war with viking... But they had praets+longbows+elephants... Could have attacked Carthage on choke instead, stupid mistake from me

PPS: also went for alpha before math, because I was waiting for my GS... I think the original mistake was to tech wheel->potery before writing, because alpha got me nowhere as everyone had maths when I got it, and construction too.

As always any comments are welcome I'm mostly wondering how you would have played the map!

 

[sampsa]

I think you should place Barcelona (2nd city) 1N2E of current location. Farmed floodplain+gold on 1st ring and leaves space for another city to have wheat+desert gold on 1st ring.

Elepult can certainly be pulled off, but it's not mandatory. You can get 6-7 pretty good cities by taking the jungly area NW of your capital.

In your screenshot you have built marginal mines and still have many forests to chop, so I think your worker priorities could be improved.

 

[gramm87]

Thanks for your comment,
Looking at the map it's true that I could have crammed more cities here, in fact this is probably what I would have done in a more standard play (pop city, chop library, work 1 or 2 GS and slow build a granary...), but I guess I wasn't in the right mind set yesterday.

 

[gramm87]

OK I'm giving it another try, this time I'm listening to the map instead of trying to force some strategy
I played until turn 80, will not play other turns until tomorrow evening.

Spoiler :

Turn 80...

I settled Barcelona first, then Seville. Chopped a library in Barcelona, and once Seville grew to size 3, I made Seville work 2x gold and Barcelona works 2x GS. Once the GS pops (shortly before), I will cottage the green river tiles.
In Cordoba I chopped a monument plus fast build (working unimproved stone), once the border pops I'll work gold and build a library (with gold hammers + stone hammers). This city could work 1x GS then...

Concerning the free land, here's my plan...

I'm not sure in what order to build the cities
If I go NW first, I could improve horses + mine the hill, and build a library in (90/7 =) 13 turns (not including grow to size 2), which is very slow. I won't be able to work 2 GS until I expand border into cow. Or I could instead build a monument + lighthouse, and work all the coastal tiles, but only for 2 gold.
So NW doesn't look so good. I'd rather plop it way later, then use pre-improved tile to quickly grow it. If I use it to rush cuirassier, I have plenty of time for granary+barracks+stable+border pop into fish.

If I go S first, I can take the gold from Cordoba, but then I won't grow. I need to chop+farm 2x jungle for this city to start growing...At least I could chop a fast granary. This city will be interesting when I have Calendar, but until then, it's will barely be worth it.

If I go NE first, I can at least chop things... Hopefully 2x math chops into library, but it's going to grow slow until border pop... I could work cottages instead, try to get a religion...

Or, I got an idea, I plop NE in another spot (NE2) so that it can work cow asap, 1 chop into library + rest on mined green hills. Then 2x GS until GS pop, then working plantations.

So I guess I'll plop NE2 first, then use the border pop for NW (fish)! Then I'll finish by settling S, at this point I should have more less busy workers.
I'll also try (quite hard) to get GL in capitol (with OrgRel boost if possible).

With all this I can get 2 GS from capitol. I'll need to cottage all these brown tiles, so no food for more GS I think.
And I think 1 or 2 additional GS from other cities (it can go quite fast with Phil). In fact I'm not sure I'll use my first GS for an academy, but for Philo (faster GS)...


So that's my plan for the next turn set

PS: at war with Vikings to please Rome. Hope to be able to peace for a cheap tech.

 

[SittinDown]

I played (way too fast) to turn 50. (~15 minutes.)

FYI: Never take deity advice from me.

Spoiler to turn 50 :

• SIP the capital. Ag first, then Mining, BW.
• Improved Rice, then gold, then worker chopped in checkerboard.
• Grew to size 2, switched to slavery, built warrior #2.
• Had some bad RNG with the warrior on a 1.2 barb warrior.
• Settled Barcelona on the same spot as your 2nd attempt.
• Settled Seville on the sugar. (instant trade connection, and 3F home tile, but not much else, and probably a bad choice for 3rd city, when the gold/clam is available.).

 

[sampsa]

@gramm87

Spoiler :

IMO the best city in NW-area is 1E of your NW-mark. Best tiles should always be on 1st ring for quick development! Other cities there are mediocre (lack food) but obv you are not far from getting calendar via trade. NE-city I'd just go 1E too but no biggie.

Not sure if I would have prioritized running scientists in Barcelona (what are you even going to do with that GS? Academy I guess). Getting cottages up early feels more important to me. Seville well handled.

 

[gramm87]

Turns 80 - 115 ....

Spoiler :

The settling of the last cities is a little bit of a mess, I could have done better here (in term of tile improvement order).
I beeline Literacy but someone completes GL on turns 101 Maybe I was too quick in trading Aesthetism...
I pop and bulb a GS once I have Drama to get Philo.
I also make the bad decision of trying to get music first (drama->music), but I run out of funds for the tech 4 turns before completion, and someone else gets it. It doesn't help that almost no one has Currency, I can't get nice $$$ trades. In fact I give up on Music at 75%, I go for currency instead, finally can get if with $ against Philo, make some other trades...

This is how it looks on turn 115 (1AD):

The problem is that I'm moving forward in tech, but I don't see how I can tech the last big techs (Nat+Gunpowder). They will take me years because of my poor economy... City by city:
- Capitol: lost its rice I gave up on trying to build up cottages, instead I'm trying to build fund using failgold. I'm slowing putting chops in there too... The city has nice base production, but that's it.
- Barcelona: stagnating now (2xGS) as I don't have better tile to work. Have to improve the incense... The worker near there went to chop into failgold when I hadn't calendar yet
- Seville: granary then failgold...Eventuall I need to build a lighthouse there, but first, failgold failgold
- Cordoba: 3 turns until GS, then lighthouse I guess
- Salamanca: bleh, once it has a granary it will grow using 2x green farms. At least at the time the granary is done, Cordoba will be right on time to work the gold (faster loghthouse).
- Toledo: ..... I just noticed it doesn't have judaism, so the GS production is slow Worst is that I had a missionary prepared for capitol, but since it got judaism from somewhere else, I put the missionary in Santiago for faster buildings... I'm not even in OrgRell anymore x_x
- Santiago: missed the workboat preparation, then it will just grow and work coastal tiles.

So what I have to do is pop a missionary for Toledo, stop GS production in other cities so that Toledo completes the next GS and then can work the improved luxury resources. I hope to be able to get 3 or 4 more GS... I need 2 for Edu, and maybe 1 for Lib. At least I can do that, for the rest of the teching I can only pray that I get nice hundreds of gold deals... and enough failgold.
Also I think I'm going to skip Metal Casting altogether, I don't see Forges as being efficient here, except maybe in selected cities. Just granaries, barracks and stables.

So obviously I'm trying to go for a cuirasier rush... I hope it's doable. Not sure who the target would be.
PS: Rome and Korea at war with Vikings since forever.

Some more screens...

Maybe I'll attack Rome after all
Vengeance

That's all for today, tomorrow I'll play until 800AD I guess (turn 155 or so).

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Size 6 capital @1AD working unimproved tiles... My eyes bleed.

Those plains cottages aren't very hot, I think non-riverside grass cottages are a lot better. You are going to have a hard time amassing them cuirassiers since you have no food.

 

[gramm87]

@sampsa I know, it's disgusting Not sure how to do much better though (in capitol) . Plopping a close city to take over gold-working duty doesn't work, because there would be no food for this city (desert all around). Capitol has way too little food to be able to share with a helper city, and there's no close food for other more normal helper cities. There are 7 riverside tiles, 5 or which are plains, and of the 2 green tiles, one has iron so no cottage.
About the non-riverside green cottages, it's the same discussion as on the currently running monarch game, where the dude has a coastal capitol with only non riverside tiles. It takes 30 turns for cottages to do +2, but riverside plain have a bonus of 11 for the cost of 1... Any way I see it, in this capitol hammers into beakers seems the better way to produce science. For sure at some point in time in the far future the green cottages would do better, but by this time I hope I'll have moved my capitol to a better place.
Finally concerning food, I think I'll be able to grow my cities a little once I get them GS, some cities aren't so bad, so I'm hopping (I'm hopping a lot in this game ) that the "high" number of cities offset the low size of each city. Plus since my capitol management in this game is, how to say, unorthodox, I can also whip it. Then take Rome (not sure yet, have to explore) and move my palace there. The landing date for the cuir techs is really what bother me though. I'm pretty much 100% relying on lucky gold trades with the AI...

I'll see this evening if all my dreams get crushed

 

[Olafeson]

@gramm87

well i gave this map a try too. Pretty fun and i am in midgame but not in a good position. My long planned Engineering war was a bit too late and they got rifling soon after my attack. Still managed to take 2 cities though and make peace. Would like to hear your opinion or any tips? Only used 1 GP for a Philosophy bulb and did not build many cottages but used the gold mines to tech.

Spoiler :

Unfortunately 2 barb cities spawned northwest and i could not settle these spots for a long time. In the meantime JC took one of those cities and i later took it from him with elepults while he was inw ar with Toki and Ragnar, but unfortuantely his main army came to me when i wanted to grab more of his land to the southeast. So i had to make peace and teched to engineering. Pumped out a lot of units and took 1 city for free and killed Hannibals stack, but then he got rifling and upgraded his longbows to rifles, and so it got very painful to take the next city (Hadramentum) with a shrine (4g islam), Hanging gardens and Versailles.

I would like to backstab JC now but he will get rifling in 2 turns, but still some of his cities in the south only have some praets and longbows for defence, and his main stack is attacking Ragnar, who unfortunately does not seem to have an army somewhere. Or maybe better to jump on in on Ragnar, but he is far away?
Could also try to build oxford with stone and use Hadramentum for a GP farm and bulb education or chemistry.

Techwise looks pretty bad. I am still in medieval era, A.I. alredy got rifling and Scientific Method. But only J.C is big now, Hannibal is down to 5 cities.

Yeah maybe i could catch up with oxford, but then the capital is not so great, no cottages.

Like i thought about taking antium arretium adn 2 other cities to the sout of JC while he fights ragnar in the east. hopefully he will make peace after that. But Ragnar does not look like he is putting on a big fight.

If anyone has some advices or tips, on how to salvage this situation or mistakes i made, all criticism is welcome^^.

 

[gramm87]

@Olafeson Nice to see someonw else try the map . Yes the NW peninsula is prone to barb settles... I'm not so sure about Oxford, it's crazy expensive (universities...), so I would only build it in a good cottage city, otherwise it's probably a waste of hammers (1400 hammers with stone, you need 700 beakers until it breaks even with build research, so you'd need a city doing 50 base bpt for it to start producing beakers after 15 turns [not counting the universities bonus, but you get the idea]).
For sure Rome has nice accessible cities, but the inverse is true: he can snipe your cities with mounted units, and the war from will be very big. Maybe Carthage would make a better target ? Plus be careful of Hippo culture flipping...
PS why the farms everywhere ? I think the map (at least NW peninsula) would work better with workshops.
Not sure how to proceed next... Cannons maybe? Maybe someone else has a better idea...

edit/PS: my Oxford calculation is really fast, you probably want to do it again to see if it's worth it!

 

[gramm87]

880AD - turn 154

Spoiler :

Finally got all the techs for Cuirassier It's funny because some time ago I would have been very happy with a 880AD cuirrasier date
As I was afraid, it took ages to tech Nationalism+Gunpowder... 13 and 9 turns I think Thanks god the failgold was very successful (Angkor Vat at 99%, that brought me to 1000 gold in treasury), plus later a very nice trade with Korea...

So teching at 100% Science wasn't a problem, but my bpt was so low... In the end I really should have cottaged all those river-plains It would still be difficult to work however, with Carthage stealing my goddamn rice

My tech order after philo was Music->CoL->CS(8 or 10 turns)->Nat(13 turns)->Paper(6 turns)->Edu(2xBulb)->Gunpowder(9 turns)->Lib(3 turns + 1x Bulb).
I could squeeze I good deal of GS from my cities, very happy with that. I don't have an academy though, but I don't think it would have been worth it (unless I had GL, so I would have gotten one more GS).

Once I teched Nat I was afraid of Carthage tech rate, so I traded with Japan to go to war against him, was a very costly deal, and Tokugawa traded Nat with everyone just after (wasn't expecting this), but at least they're having a nice little war now...

Which brings me to the next point: who to attack?
Rome:
Can take Capitol + another city on T0
Can probably snipe other cities
BUT it's a very large front, I might get overwhelmed...

Carthage:
This guy's culture is a gigantic pain in the ass!
He's smoller, and looks quite busy with Toku
I can snipe 2 cities, then regroup at choke point, then go for capitol...

Both have nice capitals, with Carthage (Hadudrenum) being pretty much Las Vegas

Finally, what to tech next... I have no idea... I really want all the techs that improve workhops, I built them everywhere. I'll probably go for steel first, and then I'll see if I can continue warring with cuirassier, or if everyone suddenly gets rifling...

Tomorrow, we dine in hell

 

[Olafeson]

@gramm87

Well, i played some more turns till the end of the game at T 273. Here is for you how the map worked out for me. Now i am curious to see how your game went.
I kind of got unlucky with the barb cities in the north east which i did not manage to take for a long time. That slowed me down a lot.

Spoiler :

Managed to take out Hannibal with City raider 3 Trebs (thx to citadell and stone) and Maces/Pikes vs Cavalry and Rifles. But it was a grind and could only do it cuz he was already only on 5 cities.

Karthago had a lot of wonders (GL, Henge, Spiral minarett, Colossus, Angkor Wat and great Lighthouse) so i managed to pump out enough GP for 3 golden ages with help of Pacifism and NE. DoW on Ragnar for relations and gifted all my units to Karthago (vassal) since i wanted to stay in Pacifism and had to pay a lot of gold otherwise.
This time i could witness the good ol AZ strategy of gifting a vassal your units and he takes the fights for you after he upgraded them.
Hannibal managed to take 3 cities of ragnar. What a pleasant surprise.

Now i was feeling good again with 6.7 k gold in the bank (2 Great merchants) and a 24 Turn Golden Age i was catching up in thech and wanted to smack some A.I. Fools. Also got Augustus Caesar back to pleased with switching his religion back to buddhism with a spy.
Unfortuantely deity A.I. said nope another time. Justitian started plotting and i was the only one he was cautious with and Toki(but he is Augustus vassal). I managed to also to get Justi back to pleased and i waited a couple of turns and begged 1 gold. But he refused .
So i rushed to Assembly Line just the turn he attacked and upgraded a bunch of old units to Infantry. But Wang still managed to take a city and later also Justi. They re armies just too big and they had also artillery. I give up. Guess will not be able to catch up again.

I thought i could win this map but the Attack of Byzantinium and he also bribed in Korea was too much and i was like 2-3 Turns too late for Assembly Line and coulnt get enough infantry. Unlucky Barb cities slowed me down and also i attacked the tech leader Hannibal and he just got rifling 1 Turn after my attack.

Spoiler :

Was a fun map. Thank you for that and good luck with your cuirs attack.

 

[gramm87]

This time i could witness the good ol AZ strategy of gifting a vassal your units and he takes the fights for you after he upgraded them.

That's a nice trick!

Anyway good job going on Carthage with trebuchets! I would probably not have dared it. Too bad it didn't work out against Rome..

 

[gramm87]

Chronicles of the late-ass Cuirassier rush...

Spoiler :

It all began in 940AD, 3 turns after I got all the cuirassier techs... Well Tuledo revolted and went to cartage
Almost undefended, I decide to take back the city on the same turn. And so the war begun
My stack focused first on Hippo, with little losses. It took two turns to take it, because of the huge number of (weak) units, and the small size of my stack.
As I regroup my forces in Hippo to heal, I see with horror that Toku is about to take Hadrumetum, the city with 3 religious wonder (that make moneys)!

So I bribe Toku into peace and also cease fire with Carthage, just to heal and regroup (I just learn that trick from another thread, it almost feel like cheating... So what )

Several turns after I manage to clear the Longbow stack in Hanudredum without any losses

Well not so many religious gold as hoped, but still very nice to have !

Byzantine is plotting I switch religion (no impact for me All my cities have the "before" and "after" religion) to get him to please and ask for gold... He wasn't plotting on me.
Next turn, Hannibal retakes Hippo, and Toku declare war on me, probably bribed by Hannibal!
The rest of the war is catastrophic... While my stack is in Hadrumetum, he suddenly brings a new stack with knights and other medieval units, takes Hippo back, and Toledo the same turn! I I can take back toledo and clear wandering units, but taking back Hippo is taxing on my stack... I don't have many losses, as RNJesus seems to be on my side, but my empire has way too little production power to recover the losses. So I could take it back, I pillage the nearby horses with the hope of stopping the knights, Carthage eventually takes it back...

Finally, on year 1180AD Carthage brings cuirrasiers. My stack is completely ruined, my cities whipped to death, and I didn't even capture a single city in the end...
Game over!

Well it was a fun game. Some comments:
- Even with tons and tons of money, a decent capitol is required for a decent landing date... Could definitively have done better on this.
- Workshop pretty much useless so early in the game, now I get why Olafeson farmed everything
- I didn't build forges this time, but I think they're really worth it in fact... Instead of needing a 3 pop rush with 10 hammers, you can do a 2 pop rush with 25 hammer. So on paper you need 5 Cuirassier for the forge to be worth it, but I think it's easier to get those additional 15 hammers (esp. thanks to overflow) than to grow 5->6. Usually I get MC after Music and start building slow forges.
- Have to find the right balance between working GS and growing... What I thought today with my thread on Academy, is that you really just need 4 GS (philo, 2xedu, lib) and that for the last 3 you should start only after Philo, to get maximum bonus.

See you next time !

 

[Olafeson]

@gramm87

oh well^^. I was kind of hoping you would win with your cuirs rush, what i was reading did sound promising.

Well i usually do not work or even build workshops until i have at least chemistry and guilds. They get rly good ofc with SP (communism). I was farming everything where it was too late to get some cottages ( also some forum users have th opinion it is never too late for cottages), since i want to grow my cities to a decent size when i get engineering so i can whip more. It feels so sad to see a 1 and 1tile on a workshop (geassland)without guilds and Caste System. I get eye cancer from it and feel miserable the whole game. The day would be ruined.

Deity A.I. can promote units for way less gold than the player, and if you gift them a good mix of units with city raider siege units and some city raider infantry, they are surprisingly decent at warfare and can help you a lot. Otherwise they just run 2 knights and 3 pikes with a catapult into the battlefield and get smacked.
If you also gift some money to your vassal, they will most likeley upgrade the units you gifted them. But often they upgrade with their own gold.

 

[sampsa]

T60

Spoiler :

Unfortunately I got really lucky and Hannibal didn't settle his 3rd city to grab horse. So I was able to steal this beautiful site which is a great settler/worker pump at size 3.

Note the worker priorities, no wasted turns on yucky roads. Chops help you to get strong cities up asap! Going aesth to get the stuff via trade. Barring Auggie/Hannibal early declaration, position seems extremely promising.

 

[sampsa]

T115

Spoiler :

Instead of straight to aesth, went hunt-archery and got 4 out, parked in Barcelona just to be safe.

World was not a happy place. Everyone else but me and Hanni fighting, and he is WHEOORN too (not on me).

Philo bulb 450 BC. I'm in Tao for 5 turns to keep one city from being unhappy. Should be relatively safe since everyone around me is fighting.

Working on getting 3GS, in a non-standard (at least for me) way. Map is rather low on (we don't have a single 6 tile yet) and not that many 5 either. Since we are spiritual, value of golden age goes down a bit. So I'm just in pacifism and alternating between slavery and caste. Unfortunately still no hindu spread and I'm a bit nervous running buddhism.

Lib

Spoiler :

 

[gramm87]

Thanks for the play through Sampsa! As espected for an experienced Deity player you're doing pretty well
It's clear that I didn't grow my cities enough (as you mentioned in another thread, it's quite important). Also I didn't know that green Sugar provided 3F when settled on...
I found this nice hint on the forum, copying it in case some readers don't know it:
With the settler you can see the bonus yield, and I think the bonus over 2F/1H/1C is kept, so it's nice to use when you're not sure what tile can give you a bonus when settled on or not:

It's simpler that learning all the resource/tile combinations

 

[ManUnited4Ever]

T115

Spoiler :

Instead of straight to aesth, went hunt-archery and got 4 out, parked in Barcelona just to be safe.

View attachment 493881
World was not a happy place. Everyone else but me and Hanni fighting, and he is WHEOORN too (not on me).

Philo bulb 450 BC. I'm in Tao for 5 turns to keep one city from being unhappy. Should be relatively safe since everyone around me is fighting.

View attachment 493882
Working on getting 3GS, in a non-standard (at least for me) way. Map is rather low on (we don't have a single 6 tile yet) and not that many 5 either. Since we are spiritual, value of golden age goes down a bit. So I'm just in pacifism and alternating between slavery and caste. Unfortunately still no hindu spread and I'm a bit nervous running buddhism.

View attachment 493883

Lib

Spoiler :

View attachment 493889

This was really interesting. Do you think you're ever going to play this one through?