[C3C] COTM170 Germany Deity

[Più Freddo]

And then I got very disappointed, because even though you went through the trouble of changing the list of leader names, you didn't change all the misspelled city names.
(Most importantly "Heidelburg"... )

Oh, sorry about that. I forgot. Would have been a good idea.

 

[SayHayKid]

Man ... I don't what everybody else's idea of sedentary barbarians is, but ... this is not mine. This my first game at Deity level. I thought I was doing pretty good. I used Bismarck to negotiate some trade deals and have tech parity. My expansion phases was looking good. I built a couple barracks and started pumping out Warriors to upgrade to Swordsman. Two turns away from building a road to connect some iron, my neighbors to the South declare war. I guess that is the downside of building Warriors vs Archers. I look weak. At the same time I am fending off "sedentary" barbarians from the North, the East, and the West messing up my expansion. Some "sedentary" barbarians take out two defenders on a coastal city with a Galley from my neighbors to the South about to drop a raiding party.

I did manage to connect the iron and upgrade some Warriors. I took out two cities, but I am about to lose one to the raiding party in the galley and I don't have extra defenders for these "sedentary" barbarians. I am going to have settle for peace as soon as I can and then switch to building horseman for Knight upgrade while figuring out what to do with these "sedentary" barbarians.

 

[templar_x]

I would like to ask for a time extension for this long-lasting Deity game, preferably until after Easter... like, Apr 22, that would be.

Thanks!
t_x

 

[Garvarg]

Well that was not what I expected. Game over 1450, middle ages.
I am not great at Deity.. Job one, defend and dont die. I can't plan a victory type so just play on and see what happens.
Fun game though!

 

[Più Freddo]

I would like to ask for a time extension for this long-lasting Deity game, preferably until after Easter... like, Apr 22, that would be.

Thanks!
t_x

I started to talk to Alan about this, but then I got no more answer. I think we shall assume that the original deadline will hold.

 

[templar_x]

Continued..

975 ok, I was wrong about the barbs… they keep coming, in numbers.
875 hand-build and finish TGLib
775 FP built
690 Eng in, Inv next
630 Austria has captured A SECOND town from France, moving their slow movers all across the continent. Surprising. But mostly helpful.
Investigating Paris, i find that they have no resources connected. Only 2 spears in the capital. And one wonder finished and another on the go. It´s really their own fault…
4 pop factories are churning out settlers and workers, so i should be able to expand into all those emtpy spaces on that huge continent, and grow my towns, prior to ignition of my GA. That´s the plan, at least.
590 meet Russia, with my first galley!
490 Inv
430 suicide galley dies 1t away from other continent L
330 two more suicide galleys set sail
310 both survive. One oft hem just manages to make contact with Arabia, still from open sea. And, yes!, the other also makes contact, with Inca, and sees Byzantine borders also! I make a save of this.
IBT the galley to make contact with Byz sinks L
290 Gunpowder in, we have 1 salt
190 Austria gets Inv… 5 turns till Leo´s and my GA plan. They weren´t the big researchers this game, but now there again is some thrill in my gamble. Ah, I see, Russia and England also have it. Good thing, however, the latter two started a new build right away – so no cascades from their side possible!
130 IBT one moment of thrill… Austrians finish Sun Tzus, cascade… some switch to Leo´s, but no one finishes it. And i do so in 1t…
110 ibt Leo´s and GA starts
The bad thing about the GA at this time is, of course, that the important towns already have built, what they can build when you take the lower path in the MA tech tree. But when I lost the race for MoM, it was quite clear, where this would go…
10 finally meet the Byzantines!
IBT GBib teaches me Theo

AD times
10 found my last peaceful town
30 MET in
110 IBT I learn Chiv via TGLib, really did not want that at all. Screws up my upgrade path and Micromanagement…
230 two LoDs later, we are at war with France and Austria. Enjoying lots of WH.
3 out of 4 elites win, no MGL. And my first cav dies against an MI on plains, without taking one single HP off! ;( from there, however, Austria is on the receiving side.
250 and stays there. My 10th e vic also spawns my first MGL of the game.
Find that finally the AS has researched Edu… was already about to start on it myself. So I save the money for 1 more turn, and kick off my self-research in the upper branch from next turn on. Not much that I got from the GLib anyway… except the GA of course.
IBT Edu in, Astro next
270 GA ends; take Vienna, Split with Sun Tzus
290 Austria down to 1 town; ASTRO in
310 Austria out
340 take Paris with the Pyramids.
370 take English out, attack France
Finally make all embassies, as invasion oft he other continent comes closer
MAG in, can deal for two luxes right away; ToG next
410 ToG in… and i draw… Medicine L
So i gift the Scientifics up, and one of them gets NAT, hm, and one gets STEAM. I can trade for it
420 England out
Declare on Russia
Stop research

440 prepare invasion of the other continent for next turn. Forgot to sell my libs and unis last turn, so do that now.
480 also land in Russian land. See a rifle. That´s the downside of my trading of Steam…
500 first time exceed +1000gpt. Buying mostly settlers now, starting some libs. Risk a few units in Russian and Arab cities in order to heal.
510 essential rail network completed, start to get workers and settlers over to other continent
Sees me lose an army which I used in a risky way in order to get Arabs out
530 Arabs out
540 IBT sees the first major loss of troops due to a deposing town
Refuse Byz demand for salt, and they are ok with that
550 and a Wonderboy-Knights Templar, of them all, kills and retreats quite a few of my cavs
See 60 and 64 % as the Dom Limit status
560 pop limit reached
570 full health army dies against a rifle L
Another one in a risky attack
Then reach 66% for land!
Press for the limit and hope for no flips…
IBT And there: Dom Victory!

t_x

E vics:
IIIII IIIII MGL 250ad
IIIII IIII MGL 290ad Joschka Fischer
IIIII IIIII MGL 350ad Annalena Baerbock
IIIII MGL 370ad Robert Habeck
IIIII MGL 380ad Ricarda Lang
IIIII MGL 380ad M-A S-Z
I MGL 380ad Joschka Fischer (again)
What a leader run in this turn, even with the HE built…
Last army unfortunately lost due to too hazardous playing. ;(
IIIII 420ad Annalena Baerbock (again)
IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIII 570ad Robert Habeck
I 570ad Ricarda Lang

 

[Spoonwood]

Continued..

975 ok, I was wrong about the barbs… they keep coming, in numbers.
875 hand-build and finish TGLib
775 FP built
690 Eng in, Inv next
630 Austria has captured A SECOND town from France, moving their slow movers all across the continent. Surprising. But mostly helpful.
Investigating Paris, i find that they have no resources connected. Only 2 spears in the capital. And one wonder finished and another on the go. It´s really their own fault…
4 pop factories are churning out settlers and workers, so i should be able to expand into all those emtpy spaces on that huge continent, and grow my towns, prior to ignition of my GA. That´s the plan, at least.
590 meet Russia, with my first galley!
490 Inv
430 suicide galley dies 1t away from other continent L
330 two more suicide galleys set sail
310 both survive. One oft hem just manages to make contact with Arabia, still from open sea. And, yes!, the other also makes contact, with Inca, and sees Byzantine borders also! I make a save of this.
IBT the galley to make contact with Byz sinks L
290 Gunpowder in, we have 1 salt
190 Austria gets Inv… 5 turns till Leo´s and my GA plan. They weren´t the big researchers this game, but now there again is some thrill in my gamble. Ah, I see, Russia and England also have it. Good thing, however, the latter two started a new build right away – so no cascades from their side possible!
130 IBT one moment of thrill… Austrians finish Sun Tzus, cascade… some switch to Leo´s, but no one finishes it. And i do so in 1t…
110 ibt Leo´s and GA starts
The bad thing about the GA at this time is, of course, that the important towns already have built, what they can build when you take the lower path in the MA tech tree. But when I lost the race for MoM, it was quite clear, where this would go…
10 finally meet the Byzantines!
IBT GBib teaches me Theo

AD times
10 found my last peaceful town
30 MET in
110 IBT I learn Chiv via TGLib, really did not want that at all. Screws up my upgrade path and Micromanagement…
230 two LoDs later, we are at war with France and Austria. Enjoying lots of WH.
3 out of 4 elites win, no MGL. And my first cav dies against an MI on plains, without taking one single HP off! ;( from there, however, Austria is on the receiving side.
250 and stays there. My 10th e vic also spawns my first MGL of the game.
Find that finally the AS has researched Edu… was already about to start on it myself. So I save the money for 1 more turn, and kick off my self-research in the upper branch from next turn on. Not much that I got from the GLib anyway… except the GA of course.
IBT Edu in, Astro next
270 GA ends; take Vienna, Split with Sun Tzus
290 Austria down to 1 town; ASTRO in
310 Austria out
340 take Paris with the Pyramids.
370 take English out, attack France
Finally make all embassies, as invasion oft he other continent comes closer
MAG in, can deal for two luxes right away; ToG next
410 ToG in… and i draw… Medicine L
So i gift the Scientifics up, and one of them get NAT, hm, and one gets STEAM. I can trade for it
420 England out
Declare on Russia
Stop research

440 prepare invasion of the other continent for next turn. Forgot to sell my libs and unis last turn, so do that now.
480 also land in Russian land. See a rifle. That´s the downside of my trading for Steam…
500 first time exceed +1000gpt. Buying mostly settlers now, starting some libs. Risk a few units in Russian and Arab cities in order to heal.
510 essential rail network completed, start to get workers and settlers over to other continent
Sees me lose an army which I used in a risky way in order to get Arabs out
530 Arabs out
540 IBT sees the first major loss of troops due to a deposing town
Refuse Byz demand for salt, and they are ok with that
550 and a Wonderboy-Knights Templar, of them all, kills and retreats quite a few of my cavs
See 60 and 64 % as the Dom Limit status
560 pop limit reached
570 full health army dies against a rifle L
Another one in a risky attack
Then reach 66% for land!
Press for the limit and hope for no flips…
IBT And there: Dom Victory!

t_x

View attachment 729162
E vics:
IIIII IIIII MGL 250ad
IIIII IIII MGL 290ad Joschka Fischer
IIIII IIIII MGL 350ad Annalena Baerbock
IIIII MGL 370ad Robert Habeck
IIIII MGL 380ad Ricarda Lang
IIIII MGL 380ad M-A S-Z
I MGL 380ad Joschka Fischer (again)
What a leader run in this turn, even with the HE built…
Last army unfortunately lost due to too hazardous playing. ;(
IIIII 420ad Annalena Baerbock (again)
IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIII 570ad Robert Habeck
I 570ad Ricarda Lang

Odd that you didn't have Frankfurt on the nearby river. Was there a bonus grassland there?

 

[templar_x]

I needed that tile for Leipzig. Plus, Frankfurt and another town, 777 from Munich, were designated pop farms for most of the game. delivered loads of workers and settlers for all that land to fill.
in the GA, Frankfurt built a duct and only towards the end of the game was allowed to grow and take over tiles from that other pop factory town, that was disbanded into quite a few more (rail) workers...
i regularly have such towns that work as pop factories till the end, or they get disbanded at some time. in this game, I even had 3 core-ish towns like this off sweet water sources.
t_x

 

[templar_x]

Now to my feedback regarding this game...

First of all, THANK YOU that I was allowed to play it out. My available playing time makes this possible only every now and then, nowadays, and for a Deity game with so much land, I needed a few extra days which I was - for a last time - granted. Thank you!

Actually I intended with that lands to go for 100k. But no way I would have been able to finish that on time. So... Domination it was. Quite a few not optimal builds in my towns due to that change of course. Like, hand-building the HE from a wonder-prebuild, and too many universities…

What I did not like so much about this set-up was that the start gave too many luck factors in my eyes. Which deal you made with England, proved very important; and then, where Bismarck goes from where he started, also made a big difference.
Like, I was fast to meet France, which feels lucky. And late to meet Austria, which felt rather unlucky.

Then, the start was, the way it was made, simply too easy. I managed the full sling, even without starting with Alpha... on Deity! I think that shows that AI were too weak.

The land form was very nice. Only one easy crossing, and that was on the other side. However, too much land overall, in my eyes.

Thanks for putting every effort into the game!
t_x

 

[LaSalle]

Found in place. Start with a granary right away (or so my ss says…). Science to Alpha.

I find it interesting that you started a granary right away on the first turn. Do you usually do this (if you have pottery) or only on this particular game? Was it because of having Bismarck as an extra scout and did not need warriors for exploration? In general, when is the best time to build a granary?

 

[Più Freddo]

What I did not like so much about this set-up was that the start gave too many luck factors in my eyes. Which deal you made with England, proved very important; and then, where Bismarck goes from where he started, also made a big difference.
Like, I was fast to meet France, which feels lucky. And late to meet Austria, which felt rather unlucky.

Well, which deal you make is part of the game and a way to make use of and show off your skill. But sure, there is a luck factor in meeting France early or late. Austria was met late in all my test games. Perhaps someone could afford to send a Warrior down south early, but normally you need them in the core.

There were a lot of Barbarian camps between England and Germany, which were intended to attract and keep busy the Warriors of both England and France. So I think you would meet France pretty soon even if you didn't walk into their territory at once.

Then, the start was, the way it was made, simply too easy. I managed the full sling, even without starting with Alpha... on Deity! I think that shows that AI were too weak.

Perhaps. It is a difficult balance to strike. The ambition is always to design Deity games in such a way, that less skilled players can also survive the very difficult early stages of the game.

The set-up was inspired by a random-generated game I played just before, and much enjoyed, so having one luxury in each compass direction is not a completely artificial situation.

I think the Deity-level challenges do return later in the game even if the beginning is easy-peasy.

 

[templar_x]

Perhaps. It is a difficult balance to strike. The ambition is always to design Deity games in such a way, that less skilled players can also survive the very difficult early stages of the game.

I think, no barb camps that were early and constantly spawning highly aggressive barbs, when the alleged barb setting was "sedentary", but in return slightly stronger AI civs, would have done this job better.
Again, I highly appreciate the effort and am very thankful for the many games that you design - only I did not like too much how this one turned out.
t_x

 

[templar_x]

I find it interesting that you started a granary right away on the first turn. Do you usually do this (if you have pottery) or only on this particular game? Was it because of having Bismarck as an extra scout and did not need warriors for exploration? In general, when is the best time to build a granary?

There is a long answer to this and a short one.

I´ll try the short one first:
My spreadsheet told me it was the best thing to do with this start.
I think I said so in my notes, also. It is not too often that I use those anymore. But this was a Deity game, and CA2 does not work on my computer already for a long time. And the extra effort proved sensible this time, as it showed that my intuition would have had rather poor results...

Otherwise, it depends, but yes, obviously there are Starts where I think that „gran first“ is the way to go.

t_x