Another Deity Shot

[TheMeInTeam]

Hi all:

My early deity training last time wasn't exactly a kill shot on the AI. I dropped down to immortal to practice a few things, and clearly across my last few games I've picked up a lot. Of course, mitigating that fact is that IMM ----> Deity is similar to noble ----> IMM, so we'll have to see if improvement is sufficient.

I'm on a continent with mansa musa, Qin, and a whole bucket load of aggressive guys. Fortunately, mansa is a lightning rod. Unfortunately, he only has 6 cities and Qin is already montezuma's vassal.

My tech outlook is good and so long as I can keep the warmongers off me, there is probably a shot in this one. Here's a small illustration of where I stand:

I'd like to know where I'm doing well, where I'm doing poorly, and perhaps some suggestions. My interpretation of well and poorly is as follows:

Well:

- Reasonable tech parity or lead on everyone except one of the smallest AIs
- Avoided being an obvious DoW target
- Pretty good bureaucracy capitol setup and I'm already in it
- The Chinese holy city there has already revolted once, and I think I should get it (note: the game was pretty gay here. I had 96% culture in that when it was a barb city for about 15 turns before it was taken...!)
- Both horse and iron allows some flexibility for stack composition later.
- I remember over a year ago when Rusten was doing a deity walkthrough with Montezuma I couldn't even fathom how 200 beakers/turn near 1 AD was possible . Even though I struggle at deity actually putting up an OK # myself does feel nice.

Poorly:
- Without much military, I'm in no position to defend myself if something does go down, and I can't be opportunistic offensively.
- Definitely great person points. I've got 2 scientists going in a low pop city, and I intend to finally let it grow after the 2nd scientists (first quite obviously became an academy in Aksum). I don't see any truly obvious GPP sites in my empire. The chinese city could run a couple tops, the fish city has 2 golds I kind of want to work, and the 3 western cities are food poor. Without stone, marble, or IND my options using wonders were somewhat limited also. In light of this, I don't know what the hell I'm doing with GPP , so I'm at least going to try to bulb education and get lib and an OK oxford time.
- I don't know if I have the 1.5 workers/city rule now, but at least I'm on improved tiles. So this is a maybe?
- I built more temples than I needed because I'm used to immortal and sometimes monarchy doesn't come as soon as it did. The culture and transition to non-monarchy civics is nice, but I could definitely have gone a cheaper route for now and diverted those hammers elsewhere, slightly improving my current empire position.


All in all, I think a good deity player could win from this position. Hell, I might even find a way as long as MM doesn't cap to monty - I have enough techs on non-mansa to control the flow of war somewhat. Hopefully I don't botch it.

Save:

View attachment TMIT Deity AD-0050.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I can't open the save currently, but organizing a Mansa+Ragnar war against Monty and friends would be cool. Then you backstab MM...
Your tech rate seems indeed nice... just watch out for Malinese scientists (if he bulbs he could beat you to lib)

Have you unlocked HE? Planning on the Globe somewhere?

From the pic at 50 AD I would switch the court to a lighthouse in Debre Berhan...

Good luck for this game TMIT!

Cheers,
Ras

edit: why Goth? why? I guess I am missing some fish hiding in the sea

 

[Dirk1302]

How about music, i see it's still open and since you started drama 500 bc couldn't you have started music well in the bc's?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Ragnar nailed it

 

[Rusten]

You should've used Lalibela for GPP with caste system. There's no reason to cottage anything but the capital here, even more so being next to Mansa Musa. The best way to handle him is to ride his tech wave and then butcher him when the time is right. This is easier to do with GPP than with cottages.

Not sure I recommend early OU here. You will need to invest more than 1000 hammers seeing as you're neither PHI nor have access to stone. Being on a pangea-ish map it's usually better to steamroller your opponents in this situation. Probably better to set up a good Globe city (again Lalibela could've been used for this after fullfilling its GPP role, I'm not sure where to put it now).

Keeping Gondar this small is very bad. It's already 50 AD and it's another 15+ turns for the GS.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Ras, i only looked at MM for that. Ragnar seems to be programmed to go music i now remember nicking it just 1 turn before he did once.

 

[shyuhe]

Since you're at paper, I'd farm the cities to the west in anticipation of a whipping fury for taking on MM. Once you shave him down in size, the rest of the game shouldn't be bad assuming Monty isn't out of control. RRR mentioned it, but can you bribe the rest of the world against Monty? That'll slow down the global tech speed and keep him in check (hopefully).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

What? 6 hours have passed and still no update on this game???
TMIT must have been abucted by aliens too

edit: if you read this before playing, please don't automate workers! farming tiles which don't get worked or don't irrigate anything (north of Gondar) or double roading silk is lost worker turns Keep improving the dynamic, don't let the AI destroy it

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What? 6 hours have passed and still no update on this game???
TMIT must have been abucted by aliens too

Nah, I actually went to bed after making the post .

edit: if you read this before playing, please don't automate workers!

I have a rule regarding auto workers. I auto workers when I know I'll win. This is deity, and I am very far from knowing I'll win for sure.

Have you unlocked HE? Planning on the Globe somewhere?

No on the HE...the barb city I took militarily was threatened and for actual non-city barbs maybe my spawnbusting is TOO good. On maps like this I see so few barbs these days I might as well be playing noble or something...except for unit costs anyhow.

From the pic at 50 AD I would switch the court to a lighthouse in Debre Berhan...

This is interesting advice and represents another hole in my play...

My line of reasoning is that CH is 1/2 price, and I don't have any seafood for the LH to boost. On top of that, it will not be long before I spread irrigation there, making the coastal tiles seem unappealing. Are you saying that it's worthwhile to work them? Maybe as just a filler tile to grow in preparation of whipping infra once I get the techs?

You should've used Lalibela for GPP with caste system. There's no reason to cottage anything but the capital here, even more so being next to Mansa Musa. The best way to handle him is to ride his tech wave and then butcher him when the time is right. This is easier to do with GPP than with cottages.

I guess I like cottages too much since they tend to be "fire and forget". It IS true that lalibela is my best food site I suppose. In retrospect what you say about this makes sense as that could have been a good GP farm and later on housed globe.

Still, how would you correct it from my current position in terms of GPP Rusten?

Since you're at paper, I'd farm the cities to the west in anticipation of a whipping fury for taking on MM. Once you shave him down in size, the rest of the game shouldn't be bad assuming Monty isn't out of control. RRR mentioned it, but can you bribe the rest of the world against Monty? That'll slow down the global tech speed and keep him in check (hopefully).

I'm already starting to spread irrigation there. Also for gondar. My plans prior to posting were to farm everything but capitol/lalibela for inevitable war.

I'll have to watch the tech picture. Since MM is small and I can possibly set up a against him, cuirassers or cavalry may be plausible options (IMO curis are better if the opponent is likely to get rifles by the time you can attack with cavalry, while otherwise cavalry are better). I need him NOT to vassal though, so I'll try to get as much AI-AI war going as possible so he doesn't get singled out.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

My line of reasoning is that CH is 1/2 price, and I don't have any seafood for the LH to boost. On top of that, it will not be long before I spread irrigation there, making the coastal tiles seem unappealing. Are you saying that it's worthwhile to work them? Maybe as just a filler tile to grow in preparation of whipping infra once I get the techs?

I am saying that growing on a water tile is better than growing on non riverside, unimproved tile Of course once you have farms up those are better. But this city (no hills, no river) will have to work water tiles to grow, so the lighthouse should be your second build.
To be clear about water tiles: they are worth it while growing... ofc when you are at caps, you want to work the fewer you can

Sorry if I spoke too quickly with the workers... though you can definately use them better (we prolly all can ).

Cheers,
Ras

PS: so you actually sleep? I am so disappointed...
PS2 about courts: food comes first I think...
PS3: good luck again!

 

[JammerUno]

The GPP in Lalibela is an interesting point. Most players, including myself, just smack down cottages on FPs since that usually works. It's a good site for specs though, if you have the health to work all 5 FP irrigated. The cottages there aren't mature yet, so it's not too bad to replace them with farms. Without another site handy, that's probably your best bet if you plan on bulbing towards lib.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I left those cottages. I used my 1 further scientist on an education bulb. The wars everywhere (some instigated by me, some not) slowed down the tech pace enough for me to lib steel in 900 AD. Monty DID declare on MM and the dogpile with ragnar might have caused trouble but I bribed hammy vs rag then bribed rag to peace w/ MM (cheapest bribe route). MM's more advanced troops held monty off, but monty later declared on hammy to cap him just as Qin broke free.

Qin's gay barb conquest didn't flip. Even at 20% vs 60% for many turns, it didn't flip and now it's about 64% mine and less likely to do so. I'll have to take it later.

But my first target is MM, who I intend to hit before he gets rifles with oromo+cannon. I spread hinduism to all my cities so I can run that + theo for some monty points...with the intention of bribing him vs ragnar so I can take on Qin or backstab him.

I'm taking a break from this for a bit now though so I can take care of a few things. I need to go feed the cat, and my new computer tower, graphics card, RAM, and hard drive are in (the motherboard just HAS to come last, doesn't it). I'm at least going to setup the hard drive so I can put the MB right away once I get it.

 

[Insanity_X]

yeah, flips seem borderline broken. It only takes a few units (something like 6) to entirely stop a flip/rebellion alltogether. there's more information about this in a couple of the RB succession games (called cultural conquest, or something along those lines).

I know Sullla came up with the 6 units thing whilst testing flips with Debug mode though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

He's had 4 units or less for almost this entire time.

 

[Dirk1302]

I did open the save this time, position is very good .

First of all i agree with Rusten that Gondar shouldn't be at size 3 ignoring all the farms being only good for 2 scientists, if it uses all it's current farms and an irrigated rice it would be a big city having room for either 5 scientisis or for 2 scientists as it is now and 12 hammers that can be converted to 12 gold in a worst case scenario, the happy cap is there and it won't take long to grow the city to 10. Better to accept from this point that our civilization thrives on commerce more than gpp, the empire's been built this way from the start.

Having said that i think cottaging Labilela isn't bad at all, already it's producing significant science and long term this will only get better. It's all river tiles, more tiles will come and the city is easily specialized to commerce, i'm sure i would have played as you did. It needs an academy in the not too distant future.

Of course it would also have been a good gpp farm but there's nothing wrong with Gondar in this respect. Gondar's also a good globe place , it's not totally ideal as you want to be near +14 (don't know the exact figure by heart) for continuous drafting. However if the city is near size 15 when we begin drafting this doesn't mean a thing as we just get 1 unit/turn anyway for a long time so nothing's lost there. It gets to +12 with all farms and it has 3 mines to build the globe on, its near 100% ideal for the globe. It's a great gpp farm too and i don't see why you aren't building ne there already.

If Gondar wasn't there i would have said the placement of Yehu was a mistake, it should have been 1 ne in this case to use 2 food resources in to function as gp farm,later globe. But np now with Gondar.

I think apart from Gondar everything is fine. i'd release the specs there now, grow the city and continue to research manually. Begin building ne in Gondar and revert to specs once ne is finished under caste system and maybe with pacifism.

You may lose lib to MM don't worry, these specs'll also help later maybe you can profitably bulb chem or something else, Labilela needs an academy anyway and you're already ahead of anyone but MM.

I'm not sure about OU, Rusten has a point, it'll take lots of hammers. But OU is not only about OU it's also about the 6 unis that are being build especially in Labilela and to a lesser extent in Addis Baba these unis help. Since edu has to be teched anyway i'd say take a really good look at your own prodcution and the techstate of the others to make a decision then. For a full scale rifle/cav/cannon attack probably enhanced with airships since you can probably trade MM for that you'll need OU i think but for a blitz attack with only cavs for instance a scramble to miltrad/rifles and prebuilding lots of units makes more sense.

 

[Insanity_X]

He's had 4 units or less for almost this entire time.

still enough to drop the odds of a flip by a redicuilously large amount.

 

[shyuhe]

Culture flipping is totally luck dependent. Since it's a per turn check, marathon obviously favors it a lot more. Perhaps you can put the city to use by stealing from Qin instead?

MM is generally a poor unit spammer so you shouldn't have much problem walking over him. Just make sure no AI are around for him to bribe against you, as he WILL since he has the techs to burn.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Culture flipping is totally luck dependent. Since it's a per turn check, marathon obviously favors it a lot more. Perhaps you can put the city to use by stealing from Qin instead?

MM is generally a poor unit spammer so you shouldn't have much problem walking over him. Just make sure no AI are around for him to bribe against you, as he WILL since he has the techs to burn.

Fortunately everyone but hammy hates him at the point I stopped, and hammy is a vassal now. I should be ok, but I'll make sure before DoW by checking relations and adjusting as needed.

 

[Dirk1302]

The problem with MM is that he'll have advanced units. Monty/Qin'll probably be out researched in the next 1000 years. I'm a bit reluctant myself to fight at less than military equality, on the other hand MM is often rather weak.

I think it's a matter of game style, i'm typically a coward going for sure wins against poor folks who can't defend themselves. Then take the techer on last when i'm ready,i enjoy the last showdown (but not firaxis's implementation of this). But braver men like Rusten for instance create a 10 turns window and just take down the only civ that would ever have a chance later in the game thereby winning the game much sooner. You take your pick, i'm sure you're in a winning position here.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have steel to mansa not even having gunpowder or PP yet. With access to oromos, cannons, and pikes, I don't think taking him on will be spectacularly difficult. As long as I don't get bashed senseless by cavalry, CR II cannons should mop whatever medieval holdovers he's got left.

Getting rid of him and getting to rifles ASAP during/after (looks like I might get there before running out of money) should let me grab a decent chunk of land. I lucked out in him building AP also which means my buddhist buildings are giving me hammers.