Can anyone share any difficult Deity standard starts?

[LifeOfBrian]

I'd be grateful if people could share their difficult Deity standard starts turn 0 saves (preferably without tech trading, events or ruins), I'm looking for new challenges and too often I'll discover after the first 40-50 turns that my start is just too easy.

Also, how do you guys that post videos on youtube do it? What programs do you use to record it? I have a standard laptop, nothing special.

Thanks!

 

[Milae]

If you are using the newest updates it seems the difficulty scaling has been bumped up so you may find that even though games feel easy at 50 turns they aren't necessarily going to be wins.

For recording windows capture actually works fine even on laptop you just need like 5gb of storage per hour. Streamlabs obs is probably better though and allows you to select the quality you want but it is a bit more complicated.

If you want to have your voice also, unless your have a really good mic, I think it's best to use audacity (or similar) so you can reduce noise and amplify it and then use video editor (shortcut) to put the voice and video back together. This is where a laptop can be an issue though as video will take a while to export.

 

[CrazyG]

This save was pretty tough for me. Hostile neighbors and snowballing AI on another continent.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Thanks!

 

[LifeOfBrian]

CrazyG, I'm about to enter the Industrial era in my game. Hwachas (logistics) are broken, eh?

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Thanks again, CrazyG, 'twas a fun game, I tried both approaches (Tradition and Progress) and had fun both times. I'd be happy for any saves you might share in the future

 

[LifeOfBrian]

If anyone wants an interesting Deity start, here is one with America, standard settings (but no ancient ruins, events or tech trading). I'd be happy to hear from anyone that gave it a try.

 

[tothePAIN]

If anyone wants an interesting Deity start, here is one with America, standard settings (but no ancient ruins, events or tech trading). I'd be happy to hear from anyone that gave it a try.

I'm trying it and will give it a shot. I see that the map is oval. I don't usually play on oval, so that will be a little different.

 

[CrazyG]

I see the name of the save is Abraham Lincoln, is it a modded save?

 

[tothePAIN]

I see the name of the save is Abraham Lincoln, is it a modded save?

It doesn't appear to be modded - I was able to load it using only standard VP. Map is oval.

I'd be interested to see what others do with this save - I think there's an obvious pantheon choice but the map really enables multiple religious choices and I'm not sure what the right one will be.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Sorry, yes, it's all standard, just the normal VP mod, I only changed the name of the leader from Washington to Lincoln and the name "American Empire" to "American Union".

tothePAIN, glad you're playing it, I'm looking forward to your impressions! I agree, the map allows you a bit more creativity with pantheon choices, so it'll be interesting to see what people chose. I'm waiting for Communitas to become fully operational, but until then I like Oval/Pangea maps where everyone is on the same landmass, so you can't hide from warmongers/runaways and they can't hide from you But all in all I think this game's map is a decently balanced one to have a competitive and challenging game.

Spoiler My pantheon choice :

I chose the Renewal pantheon, so the one that gives 1 culture, faith and science per 2 worked forests or jungles.

 

[tothePAIN]

Sorry, yes, it's all standard, just the normal VP mod, I only changed the name of the leader from Washington to Lincoln and the name "American Empire" to "American Union".

tothePAIN, glad you're playing it, I'm looking forward to your impressions! I agree, the map allows you a bit more creativity with pantheon choices, so it'll be interesting to see what people chose. I'm waiting for Communitas to become fully operational, but until then I like Oval/Pangea maps where everyone is on the same landmass, so you can't hide from warmongers/runaways and they can't hide from you But all in all I think this game's map is a decently balanced one to have a competitive and challenging game.

Spoiler My pantheon choice :

I chose the Renewal pantheon, so the one that gives 1 culture, faith and science per 2 worked forests or jungles.

I played the start with a few different pantheons but messed up with city placement on both run throughs in a few respects. On the current patch, the AI's aggression is very good, which makes the transition from classical to medieval very dangerous. It's also dangerous to have any coastal cities if you're near the AI. I've messed up those transitions both games, trying to be greedy.

Overall on the current patch, I find the hardest part of the game to be the part where I'm trying to fill up my unit cap. Once I get there, I can fight the AI, but the challenge is getting there while behind.

I'd have to restart to have a chance at the map as is. It's a tough one.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I encourage you to restart and give it another try! It's a tough map indeed

 

[stii]

I'll probably give this a go, it is on the aug 16th beta I guess?

 

[tothePAIN]

I'll probably give this a go, it is on the aug 16th beta I guess?

It works for the most recent hotfixes as well.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Glad to hear that, stii! It's been started on the most recent hotfix (I think) with the current version.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Spoiler Finished my game :

Well, I finished my game, SV on turn 362. I went Monument, Stonehenge, Settler, Shrine, Settler, with my 6th city coming at around t95. I went Progress. I picked the most defensible positions for my cities as possible (can't show at the moment because of internet problems). I founded 2nd, picking way of the pilgrim and orders. Other founders were Arabia, Ethiopia, Mongolia and Songhai. I played peacefully for a long time, but I was declared war on quite a few times by Mongolia and Shaka, but due to my cities being well-hidden and defended by my mountain ranged units, I raked in a lot of faith and culture (I got Terracota). Sweden only settled 3 cities and eventually fell to Shaka. Songhai went on a rampage, eventually gobbling up Carthage and Ethiopia, finishing with 21 cities. I selected the Fealty opener, then filled the full Aritstry tree. Arabia held of Shaka's wars and had a strong 4 city empire, with Medina at some point having 51 citizens. I enhanced with Syncreticism and Pagodas, intentionally letting the neighbouring religions wash over my secondary cities, leaving only Washington following my religion as the holy city, spamming missionaries for culture (I eventually ended with 14 Order tenets), until after having conquered a lot cities I bought up a lot of missionaries and inquisitors for a one time purge so I could reform, picking to the Glory of god so I could faith-buy great scientists. At some point I decided to pay back everyone for attacking me and brokering wars against me, so in the modern era I first vassalized Mongolia, then Shaka in the Atomic era, finally I then, in the information era with a lot of GDRs I conquered Mecca and Medina (Bagdad and Damascus were previously conquered by Songhai). For a long time I was either friendly or had a DoF with Songhai. Upon entering the industrial era, I selected the rationalism opener and the one giving observatories&science from jungles, then I picked 3 imperialism policies. Eventually I selected Order, Songhai picked Autocracy, Arabia went Freedom. I finished with 16 cities and a score of around 4400, while Songhai had around 5900, but he still lost by a big margin.

 

[stii]

Started this now, interesting start. Feels like I probably did something very different to other people

 

[stii]

Spoiler early game placement spoilers up to like t40 :

Went pyramids very quickly using Americans ability and was very happy to discover a wonder due south to settle on. Did end up going renewal too, although god of camps was close too as there are rather a lot of camps.

When authority because I think it is the best in general and especially in harder games. This start seems like it has plenty of good land so I'm guessing this map is harder because the AI are going to get very aggro later on.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

If anyone's interested, here are two very interesting Deity starts (only VP, Recursive&Ilteroi latest January version).

Spoiler Spoilers :

Playing as Austria (albeit with changed name etc.), your AI opponents in both games are Alexander, Askia, Casimir, Catherine, Genghis, Gustavus and Shaka. Standard size, speed, Oval map. The citrus start has some very defensible settling positions, but with Shaka and Gustavus as your neighbours, with Askia lurking close by, but you have lots of iron and horses near the capital and one settling spot close by, so you'll have a chance the raise a strong army early on. The gold start has Alexander, Askia and Genghis as your neighbours, with a potentially strong start for the Earth Mother pantheon, and also a few good defensive settling locations.