ALF 14 - Wang Kon of Korea (Deity)

[Silverbow]

So, the second Deity ALF was a fail, but the successful keshik rush was fun. Time for another attempt.

The record so far:

Monarch:
ALF 1 - Isabella - UN diplomatic win @1915 AD
ALF 2 - Hannibal - AP diplomatic win @1305 AD
ALF 3 - Alexander - UN diplomatic win @1845 AD

Emperor:
ALF 4 - Hammurabi - UN diplomatic win @1828 AD
ALF 5 - Sitting Bull - FAIL
ALF 6 - Zara Yaqob - AP diplomatic win @1806 AD
ALF 7 - Charlemagne - AP diplomatic win @1937 AD

Immortal:
ALF 8 - Pericles - UN diplomatic win @1840 AD
ALF 9 - Willem - FAIL
ALF 10 - Joao - domination win @1858 AD
ALF 11 - Gandhi - UN diplomatic win @1911 AD

Deity:
ALF 12 - Washington - FAIL
ALF 13 - Genghis Khan - FAIL

The settings for this game:
Deity
Normal speed
Inland Sea
NO huts
NO events

Kossin recommended trying out Inland Sea, so I'm gonna do that.

The leader:

Spoiler :

Financial good, protective bad. UU and UB seem both useful.

The start:

Spoiler :

FPs and dry corn. I favor settling 1SW to avoid settling on FP. Tech agriculture -> BW ?

 

[stimpyhoek]

What is this idea that settling a fp leads to chaos and ignominy? This is a new fashion. Its always horses for courses. SIP has money and hammers....

 

[GGracchus]

BW after ag depends on how much forest or if you need some barb defense:if you don't really need it, then I would go pottery and start cottaging those FPs.

 

[Mylene]

Unless there is something hidden in the fog, 1W beats both SIP or SW imo..
1SW looses lots of forests and a turn.

 

[soundjata]

I'd say sip there has to be bronze/iron in the NE.

Move the warrior SE first ?

 

[Abegweit]

SW gains a hill over both SIP and W. As SB noted, it also saves an FP. Looks pretty good to me.

 

[vanatteveldt]

SW loses a turn and gains no visible short term benefits, trading off some medium term benefits (extra FP) against unknown medium term disadvantages (resources).

NE seems to be on the coast, so W might be sensible to go more inland and maybe leave room for a coastal city, but this is all pretty speculative. If warrior does not reveal anything, I would SIP

 

[azzaman333]

IMO, it would be more beneficial if you played out your fails til an AI wins rather than just saying you failed them. You'll learn a lot more that way.

 

[Silverbow]

I did finish the Washington one until Justinian killed me. Genghis was just hopeless, I played 'til Saladin built UN, but someone would eventually win space or culture or whatever.

 

[Mylene]

IMO, it would be more beneficial if you played out your fails til an AI wins rather than just saying you failed them. You'll learn a lot more that way.

Opposite is true
Playing more new starts is much better once a game seems lost or no fun anymore.

 

[Silverbow]

I chose to be stubborn and settled SW, then teched to agri and explored a bit.

We're in the NE corner of the map:

Spoiler :

Should BW be teched?

 

[shyuhe]

Have fun with barbs.... is all I can say. That's a big backyard.

 

[Jester Fool]

Opposite is true
Playing more new starts is much better once a game seems lost or no fun anymore.

I noticed that too. If you don't get over the hump, on Immortal+ the game tends to stalemate. The AI is terrible at war, but the AI bonuses more than make up for it. You can still win (even way behind in tech) but that is not much fun - just grind. Not to mention that the score tends to suck once you do win > 1900 AD. Better just to try again for a nice clean win. (Note : Anything less than 100K qualifies as not that good of a score).

 

[Mylene]

Cos it is a learning game..bad move imo, 3 bfc forests with a lot of barbs to be expected.
Not worth the move that's for sure.

 

[azzaman333]

Opposite is true
Playing more new starts is much better once a game seems lost or no fun anymore.

You end up writing off games that are very winnable because you think you're too far behind. I'm not denying the benefits of starting new games, but if I was playing a game "online" on CFC, I'd play it out due to the greater time invested in the game.

Plus, if you're always restarting when games seem lost, you never play the later eras without being completely dominant.

 

[shyuhe]

You end up writing off games that are very winnable because you think you're too far behind. I'm not denying the benefits of starting new games, but if I was playing a game "online" on CFC, I'd play it out due to the greater time invested in the game.

Plus, if you're always restarting when games seem lost, you never play the later eras without being completely dominant.

It's much harder to make up ground against the deity AI than it is against immortal AI.

 

[Mylene]

Yip, to learn Deity you need a lot of new starts.
It's no good to play on lost games, except for getting frustrated

 

[Dirk1302]

Don't fully agree. Playing a lot of starts is absolutely helpful but you need to finish a fair amount of those games to really learn the game. Games that are classed as lost here can often be won in renaissance or modern era but few seem to have patience (or knowledge) for this now. Still games that are tense until modern era are way more interesting than filling half of a thread with SIP or not talk and then doing that same old HA rush again abandoning the game regardless of the outcome.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't fully agree. Playing a lot of starts is absolutely helpful but you need to finish a fair amount of those games to really learn the game. Games that are classed as lost here can often be won in renaissance or modern era but few seem to have patience (or knowledge) for this now. Still games that are tense until modern era are way more interesting than filling half of a thread with SIP or not talk and then doing that same old HA rush again abandoning the game regardless of the outcome.

I only see players losing in 1 of 3 ways:

- DoW when they don't have enough units and can't draft yet
- Culture from a peacevassal or someone that can't be reached/killed in time.
- Fast space

The problem is that insuring against #1 above exposes you slightly to #2 and #3. The more skilled a deity player is the less frequently that happens. I'm not very skilled, but I can pull wins on occasion...rare enough that I hate the difficulty.

I've heard stories though. Iranon has said more than a few times he's won seemingly hopeless diety games by piggybacking a strong AI and getting lots of cities almost for free. This seems to favor a units approach as they can be for more than survival .

Espionage is also incredibly powerful but one needs a decent base of cities to make it work. As a catchup mechanic, however, it is nigh-unparalleled. 1000AD pottery/writing on immortal = win means that you can probably overcome lesser holes on deity if you have the land .

Still, for every heels-burning culture win, draft-day slaughter, or cav-stomp I pull on deity it seems like I eat 2 early DoW death (or major cutoff of expansion from it) or a 1715 AD AI spaceship launch (!). Skill affects deity outcomes, but so does fortune. Trash map scripts that give runaway land at random exacerbate this to varying extents.

BTW diplomatically peaceful deity games with 6 cities makes culture a snap. AI doesn't cut slider in time so you can do like 800 AD lib (whether or not you win it) and if you have 3 religions you'll probably win before the AI can anyway because its artist management and culture multiplier spread/bomb distribution is TERRIBLE.

 

[shyuhe]

Don't fully agree. Playing a lot of starts is absolutely helpful but you need to finish a fair amount of those games to really learn the game. Games that are classed as lost here can often be won in renaissance or modern era but few seem to have patience (or knowledge) for this now. Still games that are tense until modern era are way more interesting than filling half of a thread with SIP or not talk and then doing that same old HA rush again abandoning the game regardless of the outcome.

For what it's worth, I think the two games posted from the deity ALF so far were conclusive losses. Silverbow didn't post the whole ordeal for the Washington game but it sounded like he played that game pretty far into it (and gave up). As for the GK game, I think 325 AD with neither currency nor col makes for a VERY difficult (if not impossible) tech catch-up game. Then again, I've been wrong before so I won't say never.