Deity ABC's - Achieving Better Consistency

[Berks]

@krikav

Was thinking about your last post again and caught myself blasting through turns without thinking on NC226, so put that one down. Still want to Civ, so picking this one up.

@sampsa

With the intention of settling on Banana, moved Scout S of Banana and found the tile you were referring to - Riverside grassland Gems!
Scout on the Gems stops jungle spread?

2 worker start sounds interesting.

@Fippy

I didn't think about the worker turn saved actually But yeah after looking again everything points to banana. Ivory would be better than nothing though!

Settled Banana. I'll try parking the Scout and build the first worker while researching Ag, then take another look.

T12

Met 3 neighbours, finished the Worker and started on the Corn. Going for Mining next. BW then Wheel next? (agg trait, 4 fairly close neighbours)

Worker will take 10 turns to improve both dry corns. Another 5 turns to move and improve Gems. 7 turns to move and improve Ivory. So 22 turns to get the 4 best tiles up.

Worker at size 1 takes 10 turns (5x5 + 7x5) (corn, improved corn) then 5 turns to grow to size 2.
Worker at size 2 takes 12 turns (0x5 + 8x4 + 10x3) (corn, improved corn, double improved corn). Saves 3 turns.

So, regardless of worker before settler or not, we are going to size 2 anyway. A few more turns are in order.
Warrior over Barracks as our scouting is way behind.

T17

Dry corn is done and we are size 2.
4 turns to grow, with 5h in a Warrior.
We can either finish the Corn in 4, or we can move to Forest and start on the Gems, improving them in 5 turns.
Corn first takes 9 worker turns. Gems first takes 10 worker turns, but we potentially make this up by saving a turn getting to the Ivory faster.

2F vs 1h 5c. We want a faster BW to chop settlers and grab land, so we do the Gems next?

I am a bit concerned about our 2nd city spot. I only found clam so far, we have Coast to E, Jungle to S, and neighbours are pretty close.


Worker at size 2 now takes 7 turns, with 4 turns to grow.
Worker at size 3 now takes 13 turns (0x4 + 9x7) if we improve the Gems. 10 turns if we improve the Corn (0x4 + 11x6)

Next Set

BW next
Worker to improve Gems.
Grow to size 3 on Warrior.

Any better suggestions are welcome

 

[sampsa]

Yep, I think that gems tile is so huge that jungle spreading on it is quite a disaster, thus I'd forgo scouting until worker reaches gems tile. I'd go corn-corn-gems and start 2nd worker at size 3, if you go for worker-worker line. Feels sensible to me, as many forests to chop and no located 2nd city spot. Maybe even go barracks-warriors (due to AGG) after worker because there might be several barb archers around.

 

[krikav]

Oh, shiny gems!
BW next does indeed feel given.
With gems, you don't really need to worry as much about TW and connecting cities and getting very early pottery. Going myst for a monument for the clam could be one option. Or even AH just to located possible horses and to open up the path toward writing.
One other city spot is 4W1N of capital, on that PH, as that would share one corn and possibly block of some land. (In the AIs direction.)

Unless Zara becomes a buddhist, tensions will be high between Capac&Zara, with Sully as a wildcard inbetween. Trying to be ready with HAs to piggyback in such an occasion could be nice.
Gifting Zara a city close to Capacs borders will almost certainly cause a war between them.

 

[Berks]

T27

I like the 2 worker line after thinking about it this morning. I had no idea if corn -> gems or gems -> corn would feel better, so I tried both. See the attached screens for comparison. Note I worked lake over unimproved Corn at size 2 to get BW faster in both cases.

Corn first would get Ivory up faster, but I felt like I would prefer to start chopping straight away, so I will go with the gems -> corn save for now. Not really much difference honestly.

Was able to scout a bit more to the south-south west. Jungle mostly, but the PH site Krikav identified is the natural 2nd city site to me.

Would like to protect those plains cows but no resources for that.

Next Set

Finish BW, then AH.
Finish Warrior. There's a barb archer to the N so I'd perhaps like a 2nd Warrior for safety.
No Archery here so need the Barracks.
I have not seen any AI borders yet so I think I have time to go Warrior -> Barracks -> Warrior -> Settler (via chops).
Ivory improve might be risky as no way to defend it, need to protect 2nd city site.

 

[Berks]

T36

BW in. Copper in the PERFECT spot!

Switch research to Wheel, then AH.

Finish Warrior, 1 turn in Barracks to grow to size 4. Workers chopping forests.

Put double chop into Settler. 1 worker to improve Ivory and 1 worker to chop to finish Settler.

Zara settles Jungle to south. Find a nice Clam/Copper site.

Settler out, Ivory improved. Stop here.

I can finish Barracks exactly in 1 turn, or put overflow into another Settler.
Just 1 Warrior and 1 Scout to my name so I think this is best.

Next Set

Settle PH
Connect Copper
Axes out to defend.
Finish AH. Myst next to claim Clam site.

 

[krikav]

Looking at the two screenshots, it does look like your gem first is better even thogh it's sacrificing production for commerce, and losing an extra worker turn moving back and forth.
It looks like its better in sync with BW, both workers ready in time for that.
Good job finding an nice alternative!


If you by "protecting plains cow" means preventing it from being jungled, thats no problem. Jungle doesn't grow on plains.
If you mean, securing that spot from the AIs, I wouldn't worry too much. If the gems where gold, I would be more eager to secure a helper city with plains cows, as it can at least hold the dreadful gold when capital wants to grow. But with gems thats less of an issue.

I would not build barracks nor many warriors here. I would just go archery and chop out a few archers and feel safe and strong.
We have hunting already, and looks like it could come barbs from all directions.
Commerce is not the main bottleneck here, so I would not bend over backwards and spend hammers for safety (barracks+extra warriors) to preserve commerce.
In a way, I think going archery here is like going math, you spend commerce to gain hammers.

 

[krikav]

Answered before I saw the BW update, sweet with copper!

 

[Berks]

Hi Krikav,

I meant preventing Jungle spread. Didn't know it wouldnt spread to Plains but that makes sense .
I also wanted to fogbust it so I could settle and build a mediocre site (given the info we had at the time, I was concerned at being boxed in to 3 city sites)

Barb situation is precarious. Zara is already securing our Southern border, but the North is exposed. I could see losing at least the Ivory tile until I get an Axe out.
I like skipping Archery still, but not sure if your answer was based on no Copper.
Without Copper Archery looks a lot better. I still think I risk Cover Warriors given I can get the Barracks up early and we are Agg.

 

[krikav]

Yes, archery idea was before lucky copper.
I do love cover warriors with Agg leaders and I'm more of a warrior guy than archery, but with gems here and hunting already, I think archery is a sound choice at that point.
You empahsised commerce and sacrificed some production to reach BW sooner by going gems first, unlocking more production.
Going archery at that point was sort of the same thing. Converting commerce to saved hammers, as you only need 2 or possible 3 archers for 50-75 hammers, instead of barracks+4-5 warriors at 85-100 hammers. (More to be added as they die ofc) and also you can count in a few lost hammers since the barracks is removed as a hammer-sink if it's built "too soon".
But, bridge under the water and a minor point, whole line of reasoning would become moot just a few turns later once BW was in anyway.


I would probaly have tried to delay settler a turn, or done worker micro differently, to make sure that all 3 tiles would be roaded before settlement (not sure it would work out though), here it looks like you are a worker turn short, that will cost you 4 commerce.

Starting to become hard to give spot on advice now without starting to shadow, but I think you plan looks good, and I don't see anything obvious to critique.
I would want to scout the eastern shore, perhaps there is more seafood to go with clams there?

 

[Berks]

@krikav

The saving hammers on Archers at the cost of commerce makes sense given we have Gems and focused on Commerce early.
I felt we had a short border and lots of good defensive tiles so we could avoid Archery in this case.
A bit greedy to be sure, as the next set showed.

T50

Archers and Warriors stream in from the North.
I keep Copper unhooked for a bit to build a few Warriors, prevent hammers from turning into Spearmen and then get 2 Axes

AH in, we have Horse in BFC! I have workers road the Copper and move 1 to start on the Horse.

HC and Zara build blocking cities in the Jungle. Bye bye plains cows.

Only lost 1 scout to buy time for my first Axe to get in position.
Killed 4 warriors and 2 archers, and the danger has passed now.

Tech Myst -> Pot -> Writing.
Slavery late as I did not want to whip away improved tiles.
Whipped a Settler from 6 -> 4.
Have now started growing Uppsala, it was using Copper to build Warriors and an Axe in time to defend the city tile itself.

Was not able to spare a unit to scout East, so I end up using a Worker to do so.
No seafood, so I think I will neglect the East in favour of going North

Maybe I should settle a helper 2S of Clam for the Dye later on?
Problem with that is we have no food to utilize the green tiles N of the capital (except dry Rice.... yay!)

Next Set

Finish Writing
Explore N with Axe
Settle Clam site
Hook up Ivory
Build Axes for Barb City

 

[krikav]

You seem to have a talent for rolling maps with depressing areas outside of capital.

Just looking at the development on the screenshot, things look a bit slow for T50, but it's hard to say really.
Building axes and settling more would not be my first priority here, I would make plan for how I could get a bunch of HAs up really fast with gems+fin cottages.

 

[Berks]

Hi Krikav,

You're right, the land outside the capital isn't that good. Lets try HA's and see how it goes.

T69

I switched research to HBR, and built a few more Workers. I want to strike ASAP so Writing can wait. We have enough commerce.

Settled Haithabu to maximise its' short term production using Copper and Mines. Zara ended up settling right on the Dye, the only tile he could settle on.

Cottaged a few tiles to speed up research and built a few mines also.

Opened borders with HC and Zara, but not Suley, as he is in a different religion to HC. HC has border tension with both opponents.

Zara has 6 cities, and I have seen a Settler in his northern city, so I think he is out of space. A few Swords too, so he has Iron at least.

Barb city to the N still untouched. I think there's a lot of land to the N which Suley is taking. HC seems to be expanding either South or West, his city's only had Archers in it.

HBR in, grab Archery and start making Stables. Will whip and chop out some HA over the next dozen turns.

 

[krikav]

@Berks Just finished the game I was playing, and I think I'll try this map out now. Have even remembered to clear autosaves!
I have seen location of copper, but not the rest yet, will try to play this as I would normally play though.

Will try to get some checkpoints at T27 T36 T50 T69 for you to compare with.

 

[Berks]

Good luck with the game Krikav. I have produced the army, I'll attach the T82 save with 12 HA and a Chariot ready to go.

I'm really hoping you're able to get more HA or hit earlier than I did. I played a short round after this one which made me want to take a break for a day or two. I'll post that one up when I get a chance, as I want to do a more detailed writeup.

T82

Not much to say about this round, just whipping and chopping HA's. Two cities with Stables and one without as I had some spare pop to whip away in Uppsala. Save attached.

 

[sampsa]

Two cities with Stables and one without as I had some spare pop to whip away in Uppsala.

In general, stables are pretty bad for HA-attacks. I think one can be worth it to have some C2-HAs (or shock), but two stables is very hard to justify IMO, almost always you'd much rather have an extra attacker than some 4*2xp. Without seeing the specifics, just growing (even into unhappiness) would be what I'd prefer. There is no such thing as "spare pop". Whipping a stable means not whipping a HA.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

I did not work lake/unimproved gams, but went for fastest growth with 3F instead, not really sure that was better but it's almost certainly what I would have done without seeing your accelerated BW approach.
Both workers jumped into the same forest to get the settler done faster, but I lacked 1-2 hammers, so instead I ended up delaying settler 1 turn. Growing Nidaros a turn, because byt hen the workers where making the final road and settler reaches the spot the same turn anyway.

Had some nasty barbs show up, so sacrificed scout and then lost one warrior in the forested hill 1S of rice before I could whip an axe. After this bout, the barbs where completely silent.

Overflow from the axe-whip and chops finishes granary in capital, want to preserve forests but also want to clear riverside and make cottages asap.
Uppsala has to build it's own worker, poor city.

I was abit unsure about HBR right away, went for writing first as the palace commerce+gems+cottages is bound to make it worthwhile with a somewhat fast library in the capital, also AH+Pottery both makes writing cheap.
Zara started boasting about his swords at T47, so he is kind of off the table for a HA rush, creative hill city spears is nothing I want to deal with.
2-3 turns later I see Sullys city on top of a copper hill so I rule out him too.

Started going HBR, but rather soon I realize that was a mistake, can't rely on religion to get those clams and this city will be worthless without the clams, so I make the detour I wanted to avoid.

Here I also see Capac (who only has chariots) with his holy city with walls on top of a hill, so here I rule out HAs altogether. Elepult next.

T69 overview. I forgot completely about the earlier checkpoints, but all autosaves is attached.
Think it's best to just self-tech everything from here, Math->Mason->Construction. But going aestethics for tradebiat could also be an option. Build two monuments in Uppsala+Nidaros and then put unit whip overflow into SoZ.

 

[krikav]

@Berks
I think I set you off to a HA-rush that will be problematic at best, with my earlier remark.
It's so different just trying to advice seeing the map, and a completely different when you have the situational awareness.

 

[Fippy]

Elepult should be safer, yup.
Or more like Axepult with some Jumbos added later, good to prebuild some agg Axes in copper city.

 

[Fippy]

Seeing the position of your army Berks, Addis Ababa is def. not one where you want to slam HAs in
If Zara, i would use HC's land and start with Lalibela.

 

[Berks]

@krikav

I don't usually use HA's (With my 'talent' as you put it for rolling maps I found archerpult was sufficient on Immortal). I don't think I did it optimally at all!
My game from T27-50 wasn't too great IMO so I might replay from the T27 save after we all laugh at my next round

I will say I think I executed my attack rather well, just on the wrong target on the wrong map

By the way, Zara only has 1 city on a hill

@sampsa

By 'spare pop' I mean Uppsala had no Commerce tiles to work, so while I was researching HBR, it was building Workers, a Chariot and a Monument (not ideal) and I whipped it down from unhappiness. With 3 forest chops it produced almost 1/2 the army.

I built the Stable after putting the first chop + overflow into a HA, so I could 2 pop whip the Stable, and finish HA's on the following 2 turns (might have been 3 turns as I was chopping the city too). Remove unhappy pop + grassland forest pop in return for 3 promos. Not saying it was good, but that's the why.

I did beat two counterattacking Spears on open ground and three in a city with Shock HA, and many of my HA in the first attack had less than 1 strength remaining, so I think the 2nd promo kept many alive.

@Fippy

I realised Zara would be the wrong target, and you will be happy to know I did not slam my HA into his city. I'll explain in the next set.

@All

I watched some HA rush video's from AZ and Lain before I played from T50 onwards to see timings and numbers and what the target's compositions looked like.
While not being as good as either of those two, I did have more numbers at an earlier date than some of the games, so I'm reasonably satisfied with how I did the build up.

I also won multiple unfavourable battles, so no complaints there.

And now, onto the fun.

T93

After loading my T82 save, you can see from the screenshot I have killed 6 warriors and 2 archers, and lost 1 warrior (also lost 1 scout)

I knew I wouldn't be able to take Zara after scouting him out, but wanted to throw the dice anyway.

Declared and moved my stack back N of the gems. Zara moved most of his metal units onto the Gems tile on, and I killed them without losses on T83.

Moved back on the Gems on T84, and took Addis Abbaba on T85.

Most of my HA survived with less than 1 strength, so I parked my stack to heal and split off the healthly/reinforcing HA's to take Yeha.

Annoyingly, Zara managed to whip 2 archers and a Spear from that city, but I managed to take it eventually, losing 3 HA's.

I killed some Spears at unfavourable odds, which balanced out losing 2 high odds battles for Yeha against the last defender.

I then moved down towards Zara's capital with a stack of 12 healthy HA's, and saved the game there. The reason? See the armies screenshot.

The kills - 6 Archers, 5 Spears (!), 4 Swords and 3 Axes.

The losses - 6HA, 1 Axe.

So I feel I did well overall with the war, but Zara was way too strong to take on with just HA.

HC seems weaker but I know he has spears running around too. Not really interested in trying against him with HA.

There's quite a bit of land to the North, any merits in a peaceful expansion next time? Or is it elepult all the way?