Darius on Deity walkthrough

[dylanmeditates]

So I recently beat immortal, time to start playing deity. Here is a pretty good start I got with Darius. Looking for people to give advice, suggestions, discussion.

I moved 1 tile east to get this capital, turned out to be a great idea. For the moment I am thinking of going AH>mining. If I get horses close, I might try to do a HA rush, probably with just 2 cities since the mines will get me to HBR very fast. If no horses, then I'll start cottaging up and expanding, thinking about my path to lib.

 

[Benginal]

Do you have a 4000 BC save before the settler moved? It should be in your autosaves unless you started a new game.

AH first makes sense since you have both prereqs, cows, and a great UU.

3S1E of the capital is a potentially very good second city site if there's seafood there.

The micro here is not obvious to me. I imagine that either cows -> rice or rice -> cows is the best start for the worker, but I'm not sure which.

 

[Izuul]

I think 4F2H cows in 5T is better than 5F rice in 6T for the first improvement.

 

[MegaLurker]

Deity is a big step up from Immortal, more so than moving up to any of the previous difficulty levels. Not to discourage you, but do you beat Immortal regularly, even challenging leaders or starts? The way you wrote "I recently beat Immortal" would seem to imply you just beat it for perhaps the first time. If that's the case you're going to need to play slowly and listen to a lot of good advice even with a good leader with a fast start like this. Good advice like what Izuul just gave you, there's really no arguing with what he said.

This start should make the first 100 turns pretty forgiving but this is not a really great start by any means. Financial oasis is the best unimproved tile on a regular map script, great for the first 25 turns or so but then it's just an okay tile that can never be improved. Five plains tiles. Little riverside, desert gold is a tile you probably won't want your capital to work for a long time.

 

[cseanny]

You said you moved 1E and settled but that's not correct. Date is 3920 which means you moved your Settler and hit end turn. You then either founded your city or moved the settler a half movement and settled.

Please provide the original save and I'll give my input from there. Thanks.

 

[barbertje]

You said you moved 1E and settled but that's not correct. Date is 3920 which means you moved your Settler and hit end turn. You then either founded your city or moved the settler a half movement and settled.

Please provide the original save and I'll give my input from there. Thanks.

He did move the settler one east. There must have been a forest on the tile where the city is now, and there's already a turn of production in a worker, so that's why it's turn 2 now.
Since the second gold was visible, and the scout was sent west and there is nothing interesting there, this seems an obvious move.

 

[dylanmeditates]

OK I got a worker hooking up cows, horses have been revealed to the south, and I finished mining. What to tech next? Wheel or Bronze working? Or even mysticism, so I can start the horses city immediately (but I probably won't have a settler for another 25 turns, so I have some time to tech other things first).

For the next city I am thinking 1NE of sheep. If I play like I usually do, it will be build a warrior until size 2, then build a settler. In the meanwhile, road out to the next city or start improving those mines or the wet rice.

There is another possible play where I could build a couple warriors or warrior>barracks while I go for size 3, then build a settler. I could possibly get to BW by then and then chop the settler. Thoughts?

Nope, don't have the initial save. For anyone who's curious, yes, I moved 1E onto a forest, then settled next turn. And yes, I have only beaten immortal once before, so this will be interesting

 

[chessplaya]

Dylan, you have to understand that the early game on Deity tends to be very different because barbs are so much nastier. I think you should tech Archery next and switch from warriors to archers as soon as it makes sense (probably once the last pre-archery warrior finishes). Then tech Wheel->Myst->Pottery->Bronze Working. 1NE of sheep is fine for city 2, but it won't be a super-city or contested so I think you can afford to grow the capitol to size 4 and work its gold tiles while it builds the settler.

 

[Izuul]

You can skip archery and use Immortals for barb defense here, but you would need to be willing to settle city #2 1S of the southern gold for 1st ring horses and then use the sheep for another city. Those horses are in an awkward location.

 

[dylanmeditates]

Is it possible that it's better to start with improving rice? What I'm thinking is if you start w/ rice, then improve cow, then gold mine, grow to size 3 while building warrior and then build a settler, you end up with a settler in 19 turns (with 0 overflow of food and hammers, I might add). However, If you improve cow, then rice, build a warrior and then build a settler at size 2, you also get a settler in 19 turns, but then you are only at size 2 afterwards instead of 3. The only advantage to the second one is you get your warrior out a couple turns earlier, but that's it.
What exactly is better about improving cows first, and what is the build order supposed to be? If it's warrior>settler, then it makes sense to me to improve rice>cows>gold but maybe you guys are thinking something else. i already started improving cows anyway but it's good to study the theory

 

[MegaLurker]

Cows before rice gives you a big production advantage, plus the extra turn worth of yield. The real dilemma is whether to dick around trying to settle your horse city to get the sheep, so you then have to tech mysticism and build a monument there and wait around for your immortals, which probably means you need at least a couple warriors in the meantime. On Deity I vote for not dicking around. 1NW of the horses, dont waste your time on mysticism and a monument, get your immortals asap, save time and beakers and hammers, still have a useful city even though itll suck in the later game. It can work four cottages for the capital and can at least farm the one riverside grassland once it turns the FP over to the capital for the bureau boost.

Self teching archery as Darius with nearby horses revealed would be pretty...unusual. To put it politely.

I would go wheel->mining->BW->pottery->writing. Don't waste a single turn teching something unneccessary. I'd prioritize BW just because you need 3+ quick immortals once horses are hooked up, and you have too much food and not enough production for that. You'll want to whip workers and settlers into immortals until you have sufficient fogbusting. Sufficient fogbusting with Darius really means just protecting your cities, not neccessarily fogbusting every city site you want. Barb cities are kind of a good thing as long as they're not on hills, flanking II immortals eat barb cities. When you no longer have a pressing need for barb defense you can pump settlers and workers in your capital at size 5 working rice+cows+gold+FP cottage+oasis (because your horse city should be working the second FP cottage). All those high yield tiles makes whipping counterproductive for the expansion phase.

Edit: size 6 with the gold happiness, I suppose you'd wantto mine the grassland hill or get an early start on another cottage if you find yourself growing to size 6 before pumping out settlers and workers. Maybe grow on a granary...but then again with whipping not being optimal in the capital there's no reason to build a granary until you actually need the health.

 

[Izuul]

Rice before cow was like 1 extra food at the cost of a bunch of hammers. I tried both yesterday

 

[Thrar]

Another vote for NW of horse. Building a monument and waiting for your borders to pop means you lose 15-20 turns to get horses, which means you'll need otherwise useless Archery on top of your otherwise useless Myst.
That site will actually have pretty decent production in the first half of the game and helps you develop cottages.

 

[cseanny]

I vote worker > improve cows, rice, 2x gold while building a barracks. At size 4 start Settler > 2nd worker. Tech patch AH > Min > Whl > Wrt > Alpha > 1 turn into BW. There's no need to waste turns teching Pot or BW when you can trade for em. Being financial with this start easily allows you to beeline Alpha.

Settle 2nd city 1NW of horse as others have suggested. 1st worker follows Settler and builds road on Horse and then Pasture (good timing). 2nd Worker improves FP south of Capital for trade. Then as your about to get to Alpha each city mines a hill. Capital should be at 5 pop working Cows, min, oasis, 2x gold and Horse city working pasture and mine.

Chop chop chop all forest into Immortals and go own someone!

Trade for BW/Pot, and anything else you want.

 

[RedKi-rr]

@Dylan, long time ago I also thought that I can beat Deity after one Immortal win
Of course I didn't. After that I had several Immortal wins, but I still cannot win a strong Deity win (with conquest/domination).
However, if culture or dimplomacy win would be enough for you then it shouldn't be too difficult for Deity. I did about 2 culture wins a long time ago, and I think I can do more if I want. But a strong win is a really different. Usually it allows much less mistakes, especially in early games and in some diplomatics decisions.

Anyway, good luck!