Another Deity Shot

[TheMeInTeam]

Monty gets shut down by MM:

Qin breaks free. Not for long

D'oh

But the wars distract tech so I do OK with lib

With cannons, you can

Tech situation on invasion

Some of his cities are pretty good:

A lot of AIs are already in war plans and I get nervous...and the last AI just HAD to be shaka, damn it.

Monty declares on Ragnar, I decide to cause some havoc too

Monty gets rifling after I take a few Qin cities. Battle near beijing looks bad so I buy peace for 10 turns to regroup and let monty shift forces back south.

And that brings me up to present

Shaka is in war mode. Monty, with vassals Qin and Hammy, are also obvious due to fighting ragnar.

Although shaka doesn't particularly hate me it's hard to picture a target for him other than me or ragnar. I'm out of war now, but if I get stabbed by a tech-inferior shaka it's going to hurt. However, my infantry advantage won't last forever either. I've been directing MM research to move towards arty and AL/Bio at the same time. MM is still easily the tech leader but any culture he has is mine so he won't win.

As for civics I burned a prophet on a GA which has me now in HR/Bur/Caste/SP/Theology. I'm workshopping/watermilling everything but the super improved towns. Eventually I might go FS to make use of those (once I get some real multipliers in, which might be never).

This has been a real slog thanks to monty having multiple vassals and deity troop spam. I can win I think...but comments are welcome!

View attachment TMIT AD-1565.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Kadazzle]

Is there anyway you can bribe Shaka to war vs. Ragnar? You seem to be closer to Shaka than Ragnar is, so you may be Shaka's target. If I were you I'd try to build up a counter-navy to destroy some of Shaka's troops before they land, and try and keep your power above Ragnar's, in hopes that Shaka goes after Ragnar.

 

[Silu]

Is there anyway you can bribe Shaka to war vs. Ragnar? You seem to be closer to Shaka than Ragnar is, so you may be Shaka's target. If I were you I'd try to build up a counter-navy to destroy some of Shaka's troops before they land, and try and keep your power above Ragnar's, in hopes that Shaka goes after Ragnar.

No bribes if he's weehorn.

I'm a sissy so I'd probably wait out Shaka's DoW before further conquest. Either team Monty or Rags should still be easy pickings for Inf after that. All the better if Shaka DoWs someone you can stab. Alternatively if you can get some steel navy going you can deter any possible Shakaism with that and do whatever you please. Ragnar looks pretty weak, his power is in the gutter.

 

[JammerUno]

Everyone but MM is miles away from infantry.

Hamm needs corporation, steam power, rifling, assembly line, and he'll finish electricity first.
Monty needs education, economics, corporation, steam power, assembly line.

Perhaps fascism and PS are an option? With SP/Bureau/CS/SP/Theo and an all-war setup you should be able to keep parity in tech for long enough to conquer enough land for a sure win.

 

[KeloGBites]

I'd go with Industrialism beeline and use tanks+artillery to finish it. And ouch on the Shaka, pit Monty vs. Shaka? If Shaka goes after Ragnar might want to buy a stop to the war before it gets out of hand, nothing worse then Shaka with vassals.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'd go with Industrialism beeline and use tanks+artillery to finish it. And ouch on the Shaka, pit Monty vs. Shaka? If Shaka goes after Ragnar might want to buy a stop to the war before it gets out of hand, nothing worse then Shaka with vassals.

Right now, I'm fine with Shaka doing anything except inciting ragnar to cap to MONTY (monty already has Qin and Hammy, giving him a 3rd vassal would be pretty insufferable) or declaring on me. Shaka is overseas and if I can break up the monty group and cap them there would be no hope of victory for shaka, even if he had ragnar as a vassal. Once you have most of the world under control, you can prevent victory conditions, and with a mansa tech whore group we'd have at least military parity if not better on him.

In fact, I can easily fight a shaka DoW off. My issue with it is that it will slow me down and give monty a chance to cap ragnar and come after me too. Fighting both shaka and monty would be extremely annoying and difficult with only MM as a vassal.

I'm learning quickly that deity stacks are no joke. I greatly welcome arty. With infantry/arty I can probably muscle through the continent, if I can make just a little more headway before the entire world comes knocking on me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I give up. This one was pretty rough, too much frustration mounted.

Shaka DoW'd me as expected but didn't bring much. He brought monty in though, along with ragnar so everyone was at war with me. I held everyone off, shredded monty's stack of 60+ with some but not heavy losses, and got peace with everyone, even nabbing 2 cities off the idiot-tecs.

I decided that monty sending stacks of 20 cavalry every 4 turns was too much for me and teched toward fission/rocketry. Shaka declared war on monty, which made me happy.

Then, monty made a request. I refused since he was at war with shaka. 5 turns later, DoW. While still at war with shaka. And somehow, despite shaka being #1 in power, I ate yet another 50+ stack, this time with SAMs and arty/cavalry. Not quite ready yet, I just didn't feel like slogging it out anymore.

The dow while at war was the straw on the camel's back, but dealing with nonsense and triple vassals war all game also wore on me.

I could go back and just give monty the tech, which would probably give me ample time to finish rocketry and build about 20 tactical nukes. That stack, along with anything else he'd be able to use, would then quickly die. I had PS/jail/Rushmore so it's not like I'd have had problems with WW, and shaka would probably LIKE me for nuking him to hell.

But I'm tired of the slog, and reloads are kind of dirty anyway. I learned what I needed to from this game, and my deity game is gradually stepping up.

Thanks for the advice all. I'll be shadowing Dirk's game, probably in a separate spoiler thread, soon.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

How is that possible that you get dow while Monty was busy? Is it because of the request refusal? I didn't know it was a special case... scary...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How is that possible that you get dow while Monty was busy? Is it because of the request refusal? I didn't know it was a special case... scary...

Indeed, it was in the back of my mind because it happened to U Sun in BOTM 10 (yes I still remember), but I guess I just didn't think it would happen. It did. I won't take any demand lightly ever again. If you refuse a warmonger type, remember that regardless of the situation it seems to be chancing a DoW, so be ready when doing so .

 

[shyuhe]

I had something similar happen to me in a recent game as well, with Monty being the one to declare war on me when he was already at war with someone else. I vaguely recall there being information about backstabbing AI in this regard somewhere but I forgot who does it - it's a pretty short list of AI.

 

[Dirk1302]

This slogging it out on deity late game is rather normal. I won some games in the renaissance but rather more are late game showdowns.

 

[Bruin.Bound]

Was a space race victory impossible? Your competitors aren't usually great tech'ers (though this is deity) but you seemed in decent tech shape from the earlier screenshot. If you had just went for peace after any DoW and given in to demands, do you think you could of scraped one out? Also, would the Internet have been useless in this case? I don't know how the tech picture was late, but with only one competitive AI in techs those are the hardest space race victories to win.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This slogging it out on deity late game is rather normal. I won some games in the renaissance but rather more are late game showdowns.

Most of my IMMORTAL games have been late game showdowns.

I get the feeling that this game was semi-unusual in its diplo angle however, due to the # of top-notch warmogers flinging unitprobs of 35, 40, 40 at hapless neighbors.

I doubt nukes would feel like as much of a slog, though, and it's not like I had to care about relations anymore. I'm almost there...just a little bit more land captured by me, a little less by monty, more time or faster tech to nukes, etc etc etc. Just one of those things and I'd have finished it.

But instead I'm playing your game now, and I've already done something questionable (that may pay off).

 

[Dirk1302]

@TMIT,

I wonder if shadowing my game in another thread is a good idea. I won't mind if you do it as i won't look at your thread before i'm finished but i can't see the benefit either. We'll end up with 2 probably very asynchronous games on the same map There won't be much comparision going on as only in the end we'll compare what happened. I think a shadow in my thread not beyond the point i played would be far more fruitful. You can start another random deity game yourself and i will be able to comment on it in that case. It's up to you however.

 

[NihilZero]

- 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.

I'm very intrigued, how the hell did you manage to get such a high beaker output? I've looked at your save and I see your capital is doing rather well, but how did get to Civil Service at such an early date (ie, tech path, any trades, reasearch strategy etc)?

 

[shyuhe]

I'm very intrigued, how the hell did you manage to get such a high beaker output? I've looked at your save and I see your capital is doing rather well, but how did get to Civil Service at such an early date (ie, tech path, any trades, reasearch strategy etc)?

MM speeds up the global tech rate a lot.

 

[Silu]

MM speeds up the global tech rate a lot.

So does Deity -> Deity+MM = -tech compared to other games.

EDIT: Not that CS at 1AD is particularly fast teching, certainly happens on all levels with or without tech whore AIs.

 

[NihilZero]

Ah yes, good point.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TMIT,

I wonder if shadowing my game in another thread is a good idea. I won't mind if you do it as i won't look at your thread before i'm finished but i can't see the benefit either. We'll end up with 2 probably very asynchronous games on the same map There won't be much comparision going on as only in the end we'll compare what happened. I think a shadow in my thread not beyond the point i played would be far more fruitful. You can start another random deity game yourself and i will be able to comment on it in that case. It's up to you however.

Even on deity, I fully intend to speed civ and keep failing until I succeed. In light of that, I'm well past 300 AD already.

If you want I'll just refrain from posting anything other than just text-based reconciliation of our variances. We play differently in many aspects so I expect there to be some.

I'm very intrigued, how the hell did you manage to get such a high beaker output? I've looked at your save and I see your capital is doing rather well, but how did get to Civil Service at such an early date (ie, tech path, any trades, reasearch strategy etc)?

I used to ask this too . It's a combination of things:

Aesthetics trade for alpha

GS academy in capitol

Getting currency for deficit research

Careful tech selection with binary research and heavy brokering, even for gold

 

[Dirk1302]

^In that case you can put up a summary of your game to the point i played in the thread at the moment i play. It's a new format for me too, i also tend to play out solo games in 2-3 days. Playing SG has helped me to have more patience, in my experience now a game just acquires more of an epic feeling if it isn't played out at once.