Another Deity game. Easy or not?

[RedKi-rr]

Hi guys!

Seeing how you are playing Deity the last few weeks I was inspired to try it again. So, this is the first map which I rolled. In the beginning I was happy to see a lot of food in BFC. But then I was defeated as usual. So, I just wondering am I so bad, or it is always a bad luck for the first map %)

Anyway, may be for some of you it would be interesting to try it. At least it doesn't look hopeless in the beginning similar to the Lincoln one...))

 

[Lain]

So I played this until 1 AD. Didn't really take many screenshots, but I can write a bit about what I did.

Spoiler :

Settled in place, tech Mining->BW first and found copper. Fishing-Sailing next, wanted to go Great Lighthouse first. But then I settled the stone on Mansa's island early and built Pyramids instead.



Settled a plains cow city in the south to block land, every other city has a lot of food and I just grow them to work scientists with Caste System and Pacifism. Civil Service is in, too. Then I backfilled some techs and now researching Compass-Optics to make contact with the other continent. Maybe lib Astro.

Actually, this game might go quite similar to my Toku game, just there I didn't have Pyramids of course (but Great Library instead...). I plan to go Steel here aswell.

Wang Kon is really strong with 14 cities, but Mansa and Frenchy should be easy targets. Tech pace is quite fast, Deity AI still surprises me sometimes. 1 AD Civil Service/Philo and I don't have any tech on anyone... ok I traded them the stuff, but I had to, since I never had a monopoly... and they trade like crazy (Mansa, I'm looking at you...)

I have 1 Great Scientist and 1 Great Engineer ready. Will double-bulb education, maybe even paper. Depends on how fast AI gets paper.



I think the difficulty of this map is average. Not easy, but if you can get Pyramids or Great Lighthouse, it's possible with 6-7 good cities.

If you miss Pyramids/Great Lighthouse...... well, then it might be quite hard. No good river, so slow cottages... but a lot of food and it should be possble to get to Steel anyway. No horses...

Without Pyramids, I would do following thing: set up bulbs for Astro and beeline Steel ignoring Paper/Education. I experiment a bit with this lately, especially in isolation. And I like that tech route quite a bit. Pretty sure that gets cannons fast enough in most games, if you can get at least 6 decent sities. Even without river, you can cottage the capital and with bureucracy it is decent commerce with Astro trade routes (+harbors) and big size.

How did your game go exactly? How far did you play?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

@Lain:

You are doing extremely well in all your Deity games!

You also seem to play very quickly. Too quickly, it seems, to handle everything manually.

Did you do any micro-managing? Did you use the governor in each city to handle citizen management?

 

[Lain]

I tend to play too quickly... which costs me sometimes. The series I started is in contrast to that, though. The Lincoln game took me about 16 hours. A lot of micro and thought went into that. The Toku game too, with ~10 hours.

In this one... I felt it wasn't a very micro-heavy game, because...

Spoiler :

When working mostly coast tiles, the workers don't have very much to do... which would be a source of intense micro-management otherwise. I advice my governor to maximize Food+Commerce (so the cities work coast and not forests) ... at the happy cap I select scientists.

I just put this into a spoiler because the coast-thing might be a mild spoiler to some players wanting to try this map

That being said, I can usually avoid (successfully) growing into unhappiness and I check the diplo screens on every turn (maybe the resources one every 3-4 turns). I certainly miss out on some subtleties which can be frustrating and cost me games.

This is also a reason for starting my series (Deitymania) where I put a lot of effort into playing more slowly and mindfully, making short turnsets, taking a lot of screenshots and breaks in general. Those games are certainly of a higher quality than my average games where I win (or lose) Fractal maps within ~4 hours.

I have to force myself to play slowly a lot. Having to update a thread regularly helps with that. After all, I want to show a win if possible, so I actually feel nervous about making decisions (the Lincoln game, in particular, almost caused me sleepless nights sometimes ). In an offline game there is no such "backlash" from losing or making bad decisions, so I become prone to playing quickly and making semi-ideal decisions.

I want to believe my micro is "okay" though, even for Deity level, even in this particular game . Not saying it couldn't be improved, mind. But I pay a lot of attention to early game micro in particular, after that I tend to slack off a bit. Since the first turns are the most important ones, I seem to get away with it quite a bit.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Thanks for the explanation, Lain!

I suppose nearly all proficent players micromanage at least the early game.

 

[Fippy]

Managing cities means a large part of Civ fun for me, if i have only a couple tiles everywhere sure i will look after them.
It's quick too, as Lain said making screenies and reports is much more "work"

 

[Izuul]

Hi guys!

Seeing how you are playing Deity the last few weeks I was inspired to try it again. So, this is the first map which I rolled. In the beginning I was happy to see a lot of food in BFC. But then I was defeated as usual. So, I just wondering am I so bad, or it is always a bad luck for the first map %)

Anyway, may be for some of you it would be interesting to try it. At least it doesn't look hopeless in the beginning similar to the Lincoln one...))

Food is good, but seafood isn't great. That's especially true with Egypt since you don't want to have to tech Fishing with them. AH food sources are good because that's something you want to tech anyway with Egypt the majority of the time (war chariots!). The wet corn here is really good though and should be enough food to allow for skipping Fishing. If a war chariot rush doesn't look likely you can always go back and pick up Fishing.

I might give this one a shot - i haven't played a game of Civ 4 in awhile.

 

[RedKi-rr]

To Lain:

Spoiler :

So I played this until 1 AD. Didn't really take many screenshots, but I can write a bit about what I did.

Spoiler :

Settled in place, tech Mining->BW first and found copper. Fishing-Sailing next, wanted to go Great Lighthouse first. But then I settled the stone on Mansa's island early and built Pyramids instead.



Settled a plains cow city in the south to block land, every other city has a lot of food and I just grow them to work scientists with Caste System and Pacifism. Civil Service is in, too. Then I backfilled some techs and now researching Compass-Optics to make contact with the other continent. Maybe lib Astro.

Actually, this game might go quite similar to my Toku game, just there I didn't have Pyramids of course (but Great Library instead...). I plan to go Steel here aswell.

Wang Kon is really strong with 14 cities, but Mansa and Frenchy should be easy targets. Tech pace is quite fast, Deity AI still surprises me sometimes. 1 AD Civil Service/Philo and I don't have any tech on anyone... ok I traded them the stuff, but I had to, since I never had a monopoly... and they trade like crazy (Mansa, I'm looking at you...)

I have 1 Great Scientist and 1 Great Engineer ready. Will double-bulb education, maybe even paper. Depends on how fast AI gets paper.



I think the difficulty of this map is average. Not easy, but if you can get Pyramids or Great Lighthouse, it's possible with 6-7 good cities.

If you miss Pyramids/Great Lighthouse...... well, then it might be quite hard. No good river, so slow cottages... but a lot of food and it should be possble to get to Steel anyway. No horses...

Without Pyramids, I would do following thing: set up bulbs for Astro and beeline Steel ignoring Paper/Education. I experiment a bit with this lately, especially in isolation. And I like that tech route quite a bit. Pretty sure that gets cannons fast enough in most games, if you can get at least 6 decent sities. Even without river, you can cottage the capital and with bureucracy it is decent commerce with Astro trade routes (+harbors) and big size.

How did your game go exactly? How far did you play?

Thanks a lot for trying it! By some reason I cannot printscr the pictures, it inserts the picture from desctop...Anyway, I didn't play far, just up to 1 AD. I started from fishing, then mining, bronze working and pottery. I remembered that food is king and I was going to whip a lot, having a lot of food. Then it was AH and writing. At 1000 BC, I see that I almost done with aesthetics.

At that moment I understood that game is kind of failed. First, Mansa has aesthetics too (he has alphabet as well). I think that the reason is that he has huge trade routes from me (I have+3 in my cities from him). Probably the same is your game, which answers why he did CS/Phylo by 1 AD. Second, France settled my wine at 1000 BC, hence I attacked him and lost one trading partner. So, later I bulbed phylosofy, but it didn't help me since Mansa already had it.

I have three cities at 1000 BC. My second city is at 1 SW to pigs and the third one is to 1 NW of rice. Then I put 2N1E of pigs (the same as yours second city) and the fifth city is on iron 2 W from wine. Actually the bigges probles was happines, as you noted. So, building the Pyramids was exact decision here, but instead of it I fogbusted my small land and didn't sail to the right island.

And yes, your save is very impressive. I need train more, I will try to get it similar to yours.

By some reason I got pretty inconveniet map by Egypt (either coastal starts for Hatty or getting boxed for Rammy. And no horses ). On other hand I got pretty nice maps for Catherine (at least I can come to Cuirs rush and vassal 1-2 AIs).

Thanks once more for trying and saying your opinion!

To Lain:
And some pictures added later.

Spoiler :

At this point I became desperade...

 

[RedKi-rr]

To Izuul:

Spoiler :

Food is good, but seafood isn't great. That's especially true with Egypt since you don't want to have to tech Fishing with them. AH food sources are good because that's something you want to tech anyway with Egypt the majority of the time (war chariots!). The wet corn here is really good though and should be enough food to allow for skipping Fishing. If a war chariot rush doesn't look likely you can always go back and pick up Fishing.

I might give this one a shot - i haven't played a game of Civ 4 in awhile.

It would be nice to see your approach. Lain and me ready played unitl 1 AD. So, I wouldn't spoill anything. I just note that by some reason I often got a sea start with Egypt

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

@RedKi-rr

You should have more cities than three by 1000 BC. You need to REX peacefully or settle one to three cities and perform an early rush to get more. Your rush was a reaction to an AI settling where you wanted to settle; it was not a premeditated rush. You need to commit either to peaceful REX or an early rush. Doing both at the same time takes more skill and will often result in failing at both at Deity Level.

The only building that should be built early is a Granary. Building other buildings too early wastes hammers that are better spent on Settlers and Workers (if not stolen) for REX or military units for early rushing. This is a common mistake at Deity level. There are some exceptions, like a library in the capital to hasten Horseback Riding in a Horse Archer rush, but these are rare.

You need to adapt to where the AIs settle. If an AI settles too close to where you want, you need to adjust your settling spot or go for an alternative settling spot. Fighting for the contested settling spot rarely works to your advantage, often wasting time and hammers as a result. Faster REX solves this problem more efficiently by settling where you want before the AI can do the same.

Often, you should settle less desireable spots to block the AI from settling near your capital. If two or three blocking cities can settled, you can settle several more cities between your blocking cities and your capital at a more leisurely rate where you can also build more workers (if not stealing enough), library in the capital as well as settlers, though settlers should still be the highest priority.

Don't forget warriors for fog busting though; they can be even more important than settlers throughout your REX phase; not so important as in the early rush, since barbarian units provide experience for your early rushing units to gain that optional 1st (no barracks), 2nd (optional barracks) or even 3rd promotion (barracks and raging barbarians?).

To make things a little easier, select No Barbarians. Then you will not be concerned with fog busting and can focus more on building settlers and send them out without a defending unit.

A leader with the Imperialistic trait can make REX much easier with the +50% hammer bonus for building Settlers. A city with a 6F tile and more food resources plus several grassland mines can become a powerful settler pump without resorting to slavery or forest chopping. Whipping and forest chopping are the fastest ways to build Settlers though, whether you have the Imperialist trait or not. Be sure to maximize hammers to make the most of the Imperialistic trait though.

 

[RedKi-rr]

@RedKi-rr

You should have more cities than three by 1000 BC. You need to REX peacefully or settle one to three cities and perform an early rush to get more. Your rush was a reaction to an AI settling where you wanted to settle; it was not a premeditated rush. You need to commit either to peaceful REX or an early rush. Doing both at the same time takes more skill and will often result in failing at both at Deity Level.

The only building that should be built early is a Granary. Building other buildings too early takes wastes hammers that are better spent on Settlers and Workers (if not stolen) for REX or military units for early rushing. This is a common mistake at Deity level. There are some exceptions, like a library in the capital to hasten Horseback Riding in a Horse Archer rush, but these are rare.

You need to adapt to where the AIs settle. If an AI settles too close to where you want, you need to adjust your settling spot or go for an alternative settling spot. Fighting for the contested settling spot rarely works to your advantage, often wasting time and hammers as a result. Faster REX solves this problem more efficiently by settling where you want before the AI can do the same.

Often, you should settle less desireable spots to block the AI from settling near your capital. If two or three blocking cities can settled, you can settle several more cities between your blocking cities and your capital at a more leisurely rate where you can also build more workers (if not stealing enough), library in the capital as well as settlers, though settlers should still be the highest priority.

Don't forget warriors for fog busting though; they can be even more important than settlers throughout your REX phase; not so important as in the early rush, since barbarian units provide experience for your early rushing units to gain that optional 1st (no barracks), 2nd (optional barracks) or even 3rd promotion (barracks and raging barbarians?).

To make things a little easier, select No Barbarians. Then you will not be concerned with fog busting and can focus more on building settlers and send them out without a defending unit.

A leader with the Imperialistic trait can make REX much easier with the +50% hammer bonus for building Settlers. A city with a 6F tile and more food resources plus several grassland mines can become a powerful settler pump without resorting to slavery or forest chopping. Whipping and forest chopping are the fastest ways to build Settlers though, whether you have the Imperialist trait or not. Be sure to maximize hammers to make the most of the Imperialistic trait though.

Thank you very much! You pointed exacly those moments where I did mistakes...So, If you don't mind I will ask a couple of related question in order to specify those moments...

1) Should I get around 5-6 cities at 1000 BC at this map? Should I sacrifice the forest near capital in order to produce the settlers?...Should I sacrifice capital by whipping settlers (or it is better keep capital at max size and work scientists instead)?

Actually I wanted to block my part of land by then decided that a city with food is better. Lol, then I was punished.

2) So...If I REX (up to 5-6 cities asap) then my science rate will be dropped. Should I research writing and then don't care about the science for a while?...Writing could help to get some kind of aestetics/alphabet.

3) Here I fogbusted with one warrior almost all my land. Then I saw only one barbarian worrior. Was it a bad decision to build an axe?...I built even two.(one found out to be scouting)

4) About REX and building...Should I start libraries (and so on) only after I settle all 5-6-7 cities>

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

1) Should I get around 5-6 cities at 1000 BC at this map? Should I sacrifice the forest near capital in order to produce the settlers?...Should I sacrifice capital by whipping settlers (or it is better keep capital at max size and work scientists instead)?

Get six cities or more ASAP. I'm not sure whether 6 cities by 1000 BC is reasonable on this map. With Catherine, it might be possible.

Chopping forests into settlers is the fastest way and costs only 1 health per pair of forests (One might want to wait for Mathematics for some chops; depends on whether you have land blocked off; in case of blocked off land, delaying until Mathematics makes sense). Whipping has heavy costs, but one may still need to do it in the capital to get that initial settler built.

Once you have a strong settler pumping city, growth in the capital is desirable. With Writing, whipping a Library makes sense, especially with the Creative trait's half price Libraries. Work 2 scientists at happy cap and get to happy cap ASAP.

2) So...If I REX (up to 5-6 cities asap) then my science rate will be dropped. Should I research writing and then don't care about the science for a while?...Writing could help to get some kind of aestetics/alphabet.

Yes, REX kills the research rate. Work on the economy now. Espionage Economy is often the best ...

Research Alphabet or Aesthetics|Mathematics and trade it for Alphabet. Build spies, settle a gift city/generate culture there, get good espionage discounts, run the espionage slider versus tech leaders and steal their technologies.

Trade technologies when that makes sense. Trading a technology to all AIs in one turn for good technologies in return is an excellent way to catch up in technology despite the huge fair trade penalty at Deity level. In fact, the fastest way to research is to let the AI do most of the research and just broker the techs you get back to the AIs to get even more techs in return.

Of course Writing allows open borders. Open borders with all Civs, except one that is universally hated. Scout entire AI area that is still unknown.

3) Here I fogbusted with one warrior almost all my land. Then I saw only one barbarian worrior. Was it a bad decision to build an axe?...I built even two.(one found out to be scouting)

For peaceful REX, one needs only Warriors or fog busting and later for city MPs. Some players like to isolate one city from Copper/Iron, so it can build Warriors until Gunpowder; this is used to generate Warrior MPs when fog busting is obsolete.

It can be helpful to put a few hammers on an axeman and spearman in each city, so the needed unit can be whipped as soon as the threat is seen.

A chariot can be a good scout. When an AI leaves workers undefended, the chariot can immediately steal them with low risk of retaliation. Good for fog busting too. It's cheaper and faster than an axeman.

4) About REX and building...Should I start libraries (and so on) only after I settle all 5-6-7 cities>

No, especially not with Catherine, since she has half price libraries. A library in the capital should be build sooner rather than later. Libraries in other cities can wait until the last settler of the REX is being built; cities not building settlers can built creative libraries. Some cities may not justify libraries, not even creative libraries.

 

[RedKi-rr]

To Sun Tzu Wu:

Thank you so much for such detailed comments!

I tried another opening, with Stalin this time.

1) Indeed, it looks like much better to biuld 6 settlers asap (after researching all worker techs) than I did before. However, in that particular game, I build chariots too in order to get barbs cities.

2) The problem with Espionage Economy is that I artifitially restrict myself to use it, since I want to learn how to play without it (however, may be it is just habit from Civ 4 Warlords). Anyway, last game with Stalin I relied on Mids, but lost by couple of turns...On the other hand I got 400 gold, so I can finish Aestetics in time when AI should get Apha.

3) When I fogbust with warriors...I often lose to barb Archers...So, this time figbusted with chariots. It was pretty good.

4) Thanks a lot for this tip on libraries. I will take it into account since I play often as Creative leader.

Also I put some picture from 850 BC, I have 6 cities, the seventh is ready to claim furs. Two cities just captured from barbs, I had pretty much land, but with tundra. Did I make progress since last time?...

It looks like that map can be easy for good players. Anyway, I put picture into spoilers. At least the map should be good for peacful development.

Spoiler :

[\SPOILER]

 

[Lain]

1030 AD, almost to Steel and have to pick a target now

Spoiler :

Won Liberalism and picked Astro 475 AD. Then self-tech to steel. Wang Kon is very strong, but Mansa and Frenchy should be picked up with cannons. Some diplo to stop Toku from capitulating Mao.





Other continent is pretty weak, just going to make sure Toku doesn't get Mao for a long time.

Tech:



Grens+Cannons vs De Gaulle first, probably. He has Cuirs and if he gets Cavalry, I might need Rifles myself. Mansa is notoriously weak and I'm not afraid to attack him with cannons even if he gets Infantry.

Wang Kon looks a bit tricky. Maybe wait for Tanks+Bombers.

 

[intutama]

As an occasional Immortal player here's what I got with Stalin in 100 turns. I have a settler ready for the oversea town, then I will stop the expansion, in fact I probably should have settled yekaterinbug latter. The first city I founded was St Petersburg which worked only gold for a very long time. I guess I'm quite behind in tech.

Biggest worry is Ragnar, he's a warry kind of guy and I refuse to go to war with him once (against Korea, which is a bordering country).

​

First deity game ever, let's see how it turns out

Spoiler :

 

[Lain]

Finished the game with Egypt you posted first

Spoiler :

Late military win in 1921 AD without using nukes, as always ... but it wasn't as tough as it looks. I stopped doing micro since 1700 AD so was a lot slower than could have been. Just played lazily.

Only problem was Wang Kon with 19 cities (peacefully settled! Pff). Here he was going for culture, 40 turns left. But he stopped teching pretty much, so: Infantry+Artillery vs Grenadiers+Rifles ... took out Frenchy before who was tougher than expected with just 9 cities... Rifles+Cannons vs Cuirs+Grens, but he lad loooooooots of them.



140 years later I wiped him out completely. Already mid 1800s ... but many wars and never real danger of losing.





Didn't want to take capitulations or win diplo, so I just wiped almost everyone out.





Map is not that easy with Koreans being able to settle 19 cities without going to war... because of landshape. If you start on the other continent with Toku and Mao as neighbours, good luck ...

Last forum game I played for a while (except my series of course , which I don't play too quickly anyway). Have to get some work done finally

 

[intutama]

Congratulation Lain!
One question: when you build your rifle+cannon army how do you proceed?

 

[intutama]

Finally lost on turn 190 (around 1300AD) when Huyna Capac DOWed on me and took 2 cities with rifles when I barely teched gunpowder. I spent most of the game trying to recover my tech lag but I think I took too many bad decisions. I when for literacy/GL which I could build, then went for music (wasn't the first), and then one AI got Lib quite early. So I ended up with 3 GS I used for paper/education/printing press, which actually didn't really helped me since Lib was already gone and it was much too late for some kind of cuirassier attack. So I started very late to beeline Steel...
I guess I'll reload an early save and focus on getting my economy back, getting Buraucracy then beeline steel to see if it works better. I don't have the feeling I really messed up with my first 100 turns but more than I wasted the next 100 turns.

 

[RedKi-rr]

Finished the game with Egypt you posted first

You are my Hero It looks like you beat beat Deity so easy now... Also I played you save, a lot of food+Mids+Caste looks very great. You left very good Empire at 1 AD. And you understood the map much better than me.
Well, thanks a lot for trying it!
I tried your Justinian game, but rage quit at 2400BC when barbs start coming at the same time when I settled the city near bronze (the first one goes on top of sugar). And I had so big plans with that stone to the right...So, barbs captued my bronze city. Considering it I was pleasently surprised that you went for hunting->archery. I like your games more and more.

Finally lost on turn 190 (around 1300AD) when Huyna Capac DOWed on me and took 2 cities with rifles when I barely teched gunpowder. I spent most of the game trying to recover my tech lag but I think I took too many bad decisions. I when for literacy/GL which I could build, then went for music (wasn't the first), and then one AI got Lib quite early. So I ended up with 3 GS I used for paper/education/printing press, which actually didn't really helped me since Lib was already gone and it was much too late for some kind of cuirassier attack. So I started very late to beeline Steel...
I guess I'll reload an early save and focus on getting my economy back, getting Buraucracy then beeline steel to see if it works better. I don't have the feeling I really messed up with my first 100 turns but more than I wasted the next 100 turns.

Well...gunpowder at 1300 AD looks pretty late I guess. As i understand it is very good to use wonders failgold to keep economy alive at BC years. Industrious Stalin is very good for it. Also it is good to sell resourses for money (meanwhile trying to claim the as much as possible), in one of my games I did it to, worked fine.

 

[intutama]

@RedKi-rr: Tried again from turn 100, managed to get steel around 1300AD... Just before this I DOWed on Korea as Vikings+Maya also DOWed and I thought I could grab a few cities easily. Two turns after that Spain DOWed on me, I could grab one Korean city then Korea got vassalized by the Vikings... So I gave up again no so much because of Spain than because of the Vikings (they have two vassals now).

Oh well, I'm wondering how you are doing on this map yourself