Deity ABC's - Achieving Better Consistency

[Berks]

Introduction

Hi everyone,

After a long hiatus from Civ4 (I had an account on this site in 2008, but I don't have the email address and I cant remember the password, no matter), I came back to the game two months ago as a mid level Immortal player.

While messing around with games, I watched some lets play's and read some of the excellent walk-through games here, and focused on finishing games. I then won 5 immortal games in a row. This was the confidence I needed to take the plunge and start learning Deity.

Several losses followed, but after each loss I improved! First, dealing with the barbs. Then, how to grab enough land. Then, how to establish a decisive tech lead and conquer the first AI. Then, how to continue momentum and conquer another AI, even at tech parity or a disadvantage.

Eventually, I was able to get to the point where I have now won 4 'offline' games on deity, although not in a row. I estimate I can win 5% of random starts.

The last few weeks I have had trouble converting a winning start, so I have decided to return to the forums and look for help in further improving my game.

Purpose

My goal is to improve to the point where I can win a randomly rolled start around 50% of the time, first time around.

This thread will contain a series of randomly generated, non modified maps, mostly Fractal and Continents. (I don't like Pangaea much) I'm open to other map scripts later (been playing around with Big & Small recently!)

The second post will contain links to all maps posted, and the first map for this thread will be contained in the third post.

Edit - thanks to Lymond's help, I am posting saves using BUG 4.4 in CustomAssets, hopefully this will mean everyone can access the saves

I will play at least one round each day and post a summary of the turnset, including goals for the next turnset.

I would prefer to keep the thread discussing one map at a time, as I expect I will be retrying/restarting maps quite often. A map will be considered 'done' once I have won, or once I have tried enough times to warrant giving up!

This is so I learn how to execute the 'best' winning strategy on a map. Once I can do this, I can then start learning how to pick the best strategy first time.

Contributions

I'm looking for some of the established Deity players to come in and offer critiques of my game. I know I have several holes in my game, please show me where they are!!

I am happy for others to shadow, even ahead of where I am. To assist me (and others) in learning, it is best to post short turnsets and writeups discussing the strategy/choices. I know writeups are time consuming, so if you only post a few rounds, I understand, but please include lots of saves!!

I would love to have a series of saves available showing a win on each map, whether they be mine or someone else's.

You can learn a lot by viewing others' saves and seeing the incremental developments. I will probably keep a folder on my PC with everyone's saves from each map for review and comparison purposes.

Lastly, if you are like I was 2 months ago, churning the wheels on Immortal, or even Emperor, please feel free to jump in and give it a go. You will be surprised how much you will learn just by participating. I know on my last account I was able to get from Monarch to Immortal just by playing games posted.

Wish me luck!

 

[Berks]

Reserved for linking games played

 

[Berks]

Here is the first start - Brennus, Continents, standard options. I discarded the first 2 starts as they were with leaders I have already beaten Deity with (HC and Pacal)

Attached are the save and a pic of the start.

Edit - this is a new start using BUG 4.4 in the customassets folder. Hopefully people can open the save!

I am thinking of moving the scout onto one of the hills, but i doubt I will move the settler.

 

[lymond]

No one is going to be able to open your save. For one, you are playing with an outdated version of BUFFY. If you want to use the latest version (actually versions as there is a beta) go here:

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php

However, BUFFY is not exactly ideal for forum games here. I highly recommend BAT mod, which like BUFFY, includes BUG/BULL all nice and setup for you, plus graphic enhancements (and minus the HOF mod part). Some folks here have BAT installed (I use it for all my offline games). However, BUG/BULL in custom assets is the most preferred here as anyone can open the save with or without the mod. And you can find all this stuff here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ4-bts-unaltered-gameplay-bug-bat-and-bull.268/

So, if you want folks to help or follow along this Brennus game, you will need to post screenshots (which is a good idea regardless). But folks can't play along with you for this one.

Brennus is actually I'd say an underrated leader, mainly as his traits are very nice and really good on high levels, if you know how to use Spiritual. Char is always good. It's the Celt starting techs that suck.

oh...and last note..if you are going to play with a mod, it is good to let folks know this so they don't get derped opening your save. (exception is BUG/BULL in custom assets since it does not matter)

 

[Berks]

Hi Lymond,

Thanks for your post! I did mention I was using a mod, but it seems i have the wrong one!!

I did play a 40 turn set, but I have decided to restart here to minimise the waste.

Using your very helpful advice, I managed to install BUG 4.4 in the CustomAssets folder. I don't know if I can do the same thing with BULL?

I agree with your comments about Brennus. SPI and CHA are two of my favourite traits, shame about the starting techs.

I have generated a new save for Brennus, using the same map settings. I have uploaded the new save to post 3. I'll play a new round 1 now and post the results

 

[lymond]

BULL zip comes with some instructions inside. Basically just a copy paste job, except for the optional feature (which are setup in BAT and BUFF and I actually use them). the DLL goes in the regular Assets folder, but rename the vanilla DLL first ( one, you don't want to lose that and, two, you need it if you want to play standalone mods, e.g., BAT, BUFFY, etc.). Well, actually BAT tends to run fine with the BULL dll since it's all the same version.

(creating pics in spoiler tags is helpful too. apparently there is some way to do so with an attached image, but I've always used a hosting site like Imgur, and just copy in the BBcode)

Actually, with a turn 0 save you could have converted the old save to a WB file and played normally, but this start seems promising. My initial eye on the start begs to settle on the PH to the NW, so I'd either move my scout up there or move him in an E or SE direction to see what I might miss. Can't go wrong settling on that PH, with rivers and wet corn. Only loss is FP but settling on the PH makes for faster start.

edit: Yeah, agree with Sir Lain that shorter turnsets would be more helpful, including even getting advice from Turn 0. So much can go wrong in 40 turns. Heck, 10 turns on Deity. Deity is all about the little things.

edit 2: oh..that corn is not wet..my eyes deceive me...might change things

 

[Lain]

Playing shorter turn sets may also contribute to a better learning experience. 40 turns is quite a lot. Some big decisions have to be made by then. I would go for 10 at most. Also helps to stay engaged with the game (for the viewer, maybe for yourself aswell). I mean it's possible to work back from a later save and deduce "Ah, the 2nd city shouldn't be there right now", but that kind of misses the point and tends to be cumbersome. Better to tackle early decision making head on.

 

[lymond]

um..Berks..not sure about this map you rolled here. I'm not going to spoil as of yet, but not sure how you rolled this particular "state" on a standard Continents map, but I'd say it does not bode well for a Deity learning game. Maybe it is some quirk of the map options, but haven't played Continents in some time.

Let me know if you wish me to reveal this problematic issue, or you may have already figured out what I talking about here if you indeed played on without advice.

On the other hand, Lain might like this map indeed.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

I agree with your comments. In my original game, I did have a save at T23 where I needed to make a critical decision (Archery vs BW) and intended to replay from there if I made a bad choice. After thinking about it some more, maybe more decision points would lead to better input. I didn't expect too many replies at first to be honest!

Lymond - I played 10 turns and noticed I am isolated. Furthermore, it appears my land is of dubious quality.

Just wait until you see my battle RNG

I expect to lose the game, but I will play out the game as strong as I can, for learning purposes.

Lain - Maybe as the new 'guru' of this map type, you can light the way - it looks less brutal than your last island

 

[Berks]

Round 1 – To 3320 BC:

T0: Move the scout 1NW. NE looks more attractive, so I go up there. No new resources, but 1N will give me 3 more hills, while sacrificing some floodplains. Commerce vs Production..........

I have not won a Deity game with a production capital yet, so I decide to SIP. I also factor in that moving 1N will cost me 1 turn working improved Corn.

Settling reveals Stone will be in my borders on T50. I start Ag (10) and a worker (15).

T5: Scout finds Tundra to the north. Start swinging back to the W. 1N loses 2 FP, 1 riverside grass and 2 grass, to gain 2 grassland hills, 1 plains hill and 2 plains. # of forests unchanged. I think my capital is slightly better, but 1N could be powerful in the right hands.
T7: Scout attacked by a Lion while on a forested hill. Win! (WTH?) - My odds – 79.5%.
T10: Ag in, start Mining. Scout has now found the western coast, I think I might be Isolated!?! Scout has not found much in the way of resources either!

I have a lot of room for Barbs to attack. I start Mining (7). I can improve all my tiles after this tech, I think then I need to decide on BW or Archery.

T13: Buddhism FIDL.
T15: Worker in. Start on a Warrior, Worker starts on the Corn.
T17: Mining in.

I'm going to stop here as I think the next tech choice is crucial.

Picture of the known world below.

Round 2 Plan:

I think I should leave my scout where he is, he can fogbust the SW corner. My first 2 Warriors can cover most of the NE and NW.

BW in 16 turns. Archery in 8. AH in 12.

AH would be nice for the 2 pig tiles in the north. BW would let me chop out Settlers, or the Pyramids a little later on. No Copper or horses in range, and I am likely in trouble.

As I only have 1 visible resource in my BFC, what are the odds of my having Copper or Horse in the BFC?

Archery will give me safety, finishing on T25 or 26. I will have 2 mines done by T29, making 7H a turn, can get out 2 archers by T40.

I don't like Oracle, I don't see a way to get out the necessary defence in time, and I am 2 techs from CoL and 3 techs from MC.

Pyramids are more appealing, but I don't have much experience building wonders on Deity. With perfect micro I can have the Stone hooked up on T53(?), and I should have enough time to pre-chop some of the forests, if i can get a 2nd worker out fairly soon.

Other main choice I can see is Archery -> Pottery and start cottaging the capital. 2nd site is going to suck though, I don't have AH or Fishing. Maybe I should settle on the southern tip and start cottaging there?

 

[Lain]

Not sure about lighting the way, but there is a top spot for your 2nd city - 3S of your capital. It's perfect. Completely safe from any barbs, doesn't need a road (which is a big + for Brennus), 3x FP / Corn / Stone and who knows, maybe some Fish in the fog?

Yeah I would go Archery right now. Even if you have Copper, add in the research for The Wheel and you are cutting it close already. And you already have Hunting, so it's not that painful. Also, BW is technically not needed yet and would delay the much needed Pottery. I suggest going Archery -> Wheel -> Pottery next.

(Looking at it again: On a brave day I would just go with warriors here and at least delay Archery until Pottery is done... Hold out with warriors and get those cottages running a bit earlier)

Later your capital can build the Pyramids (finish or failgold, both pretty welcome) with corn + 3 mines while your 2nd city can build workers/settlers at size 4, working 3x FP cottages and stone. It's beautiful.

More scouting needed, especially on the east coast.

Certainly a bit of an untypical learning game. On the other hand, you can focus on empire management here without getting distracted by anything else. Can be a good experience.

 

[Fippy]

Yup it's def. an early Archery situation, might as well make some use of hunting.
It's esp bad that you cannot build wariors anymore once connecting copper, can hurt more than you would think.
Could plunder it later thou

Think i would (well not disagree) with pottery & wheel before BW thou, but i would aim for something different.
It's a free revolt into slavery with Brennus, and i would farm 1 floodplains (not well looked upon usually, but i like it here) and go for whipping settler into archer.

 

[Pangaea]

Off-topic in a way, but what happened to that picture you attached? It looks absurdly compressed and with horrible picture quality - yet it's almost 200kB. Odd.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

Warriors only might be the way to go. Now that I have complained about bad luck enough, I will post the next round winning several lucky battles and not suffering any setbacks, and unlocking Heroic Epic
@ all - I'll lay off the RNG whines from now on. Good players should win regardless of bad RNG. I will still post some battle results though, I think it is useful to see if there were any delays caused by bad luck.

For a serious try, Archery -> Pottery seems the most sensible. I'll see about Pyra's at the end of round 2.

Hi Fippy,

I actually like starting with Hunting, it makes the 'crap, I need Archery' tech path less painful, (sometimes letting you squeeze in that BW or Pottery or AH in time), and you can uncover more map early on with the Scout, better chance of finding strat. resources and good 2nd site

I'm not a 'every floodplain MUST be cottaged no matter what' player, I like the idea of farming a single FP, especially if the 3S site doesn't have seafood. It can grow the 2nd city faster as well!

I first planned to slowbuild settlers @ cap using mines, but the whip is probably superior.
(Maybe time to build that production spreadsheet I have been putting off for the last month )

Hi Pangaea,

I saved the file using Paint.net and saved it with 8 bit compression to save file space. I think I also reduced the dithering setting to save a bit more space. The original files were almost 1MB in size.

The file quality looks a lot better on my PC! I think I will try the next images without touching the dithering setting, it only saved about 30kb on the size anyway.

Appreciate all the responses. Good to see this forum isn't dead yet.

Edit: @Pangaea - thanks for the tip

Round 2 – To 3000 BC:

T17: First change of plans! I start moving the Scout to the East. Switch research to Archery.

T19: Corn finishes. Scout reveals no seafood for 3S site. Decide to take Fippy's advice and farm one FP next. I choose the one 1E of corn so I don't waste a turn moving to the next grassland hill.

T25: Archery in. Scout has checked out the Eastern coast, found 1 fish and 1 whale. Decide to bring him back to fogbust, don't see the sense in scouting the northern tundra sites just yet.

Wheel -> Pottery will take 19 turns total. BW will take 15.


Round 3 Plan:

We will grow to size 5 in 8 turns (4 turns @ size 3/7F, 4 turns @ size 4/8f). By then, only 1 mine will be ready. Farming the FP shaves 1 turn off the grow to size 6 due to stored food, so we reach 6 in 11 turns. Worker needs 2 turns to finish farm, then 1 turn to move, 4 turns to mine non-river grassland hill, 1 turn to move to river grass hill, 4 turns to mine this, 12 turns total.
Or we could waste 1 extra turn to mine the river grass hill first. I think we only recover that turn if we skip mining the riverside plains hill? I don't want to waste the worker turn, I value the hammers more at this point in the game.

By my calculations, the warrior + first archer will take 13 more turns to build. A 2nd archer can then be added in 16 turns. Slowbuilding a settler will take 7 turns (14F+H/T using 3 mines, 2 farms @ size 6 with 1 angry face)

Using BW first, we can then almost immediately whip the settler @ size 6, so the tradeoff will be between cottage turns and growth of city 2/prechopping forests for Pyramids.

I think Pottery before BW is the slightly stronger choice, for these 2 reasons:

Overall, commerce will be our bottleneck in this game;
Having 3 mines to work @ size 6 will allow production of more Archers and/or a 2nd Worker quicker.

Maybe I should post 2 saves, one with Pottery -> BW, and one with BW -> Pottery, and choose the 'best' one??

Also, what is the value of a 2nd worker here. I am thinking I need one to chop/pre-chop the forests, and halve the time it takes to get the Quarry online for Pyramids. I can see stopping at 2 for some time though.

I will probably post round 3 (and maybe a round 3B) later tonight - its only 9:30AM here in Aus

PS: I don't play all offline games to this level of detail, I usually blaze through. My Deity wins to date took 5-6 hours, I expect this game will reach this figure at 1AD

The point of doing all this math in the thread is 1. to internalise it into my own brain so I can calculate it faster on the fly during offline games, 2. have better players point out mistakes and offer superior choices.
Math is

 

[Pangaea]

.png is terrible for file sizes. It's better to convert to .jpg. Much smaller filesizes and without the drastic reduction in image quality.

The RNG can be a very mean mistress

 

[Berks]

Round 3 – to 1820BC

T27: Farm completes, Worker to build first mine;
T30: Warrior done, start Archer;
T31: Mine done, Worker to start 2nd mine. Hinduism FIDL;
T33: Wheel in, start Pottery (9);
T36: I grow into unhappy and unhealthy. I have 2 unhappy faces due to no military, not 1. Did not expect that! Rearrange tiles to work Corn, 1 FP and 2 mines, stagnant. Worker to road Corn.
T37: Archer pops. Add back 2 FP's I have 10HPT now, I decide to squeeze in 1 Warrior for MP, Warrior + Archer will take 4 turns.
T38: 2 Barbs approach Scout, I have to retreat him.
T39: Warrior in. Corn roaded. Worker to road Stone.
Move Archer to the NW to intercept Barbs. Switch 1FP to the plains hill. This will change me from 3T growth/4T Archer to 4T growth/3T Archer.
T40: Archer approaches my border. I station my Archer on the mined grassland hill.
T41: Win vs Archer at 90.9% odds. Archer has 2.0/3.0. Warrior approaches.
T42: Archer wins again at 87.8% odds. 2nd Archer spawns. 2 barbs on same tile to NW. Move archers to hill NW of capital.
Pottery in. Stone road finished, worker to start first cottage. Switch back to the FP, start a Settler and BW. Promote Archer to Guerilla I and stick on the hill.
T43: Archer and Warrior move in a strange direction. Have Archers to defend against them. Apart from 1 tile in the east, my fogbusting is decent - see pic.
T44: Barbs do not take the fight
T45: Lose first Archer at 90.9% odds. Kill Barb warrior at 97.1% odds. 2nd Archer has 0.1 left, kill him at 100%. Another barb Archer approaches my scout, send him 1E.
T46: Archer threatening my mine, my Archer cant reach. Decide I will hide on the forest over the river. Promote Guerilla II. First cottage done.
T47: Archer moves onto flatland 2N of cap. Move my archer back onto the hill. Scout threatened by warrior, retreat him but end turn next to a 2nd warrior. I really need another Archer, but Settler is almost done.
T48: Archer wins at 97.9%. Scout loses at 23.7%. Move my Archer to re-position on the grassland hill mine.
T49: Warrior threatens grassland mine. Move Archer on top of it. Warrior at 1.1/2, my Archer 2.7/3. Fortify.
Settler done, move him 3S. Start another Archer.
T50: Bibracte grows to 7. Vienne founded, steal the Corn, start Archer. Bibracte goes onto a grass forest. Archer wins at 100%. Barb archer to the NW. Decide to move my fogbusting warrior onto the grassland forest hill to the SE of the Barb.
Another barb to the NE. Borders popped, so I can start fogbusting to the north. Research off for 1 turn so I can reach BW - feel I should whip another Settler if I can secure a site.
T51: My warrior wins at 66.7%! Barb warrior declines the fight and moves onto a plain tile. Archer has 92.7% odds to kill him, decide to go for it – need 2xp for HE. Win, unlock HE, but only have 0.1HP left!! 2nd cottage done.
T52: Archer completes.

Decide to stop here. Have several choices to make now. BW will finish in 2 turns.

Interestingly, Bibracte is the #1 city and the highest pop. Stonehenge only built 1960BC - seems really late?

Round 4 Plan:

I feel I did a good job managing the barb aggression overall, I think they should die down a bit now. I have 2 Archers and 1 Warrior to fogbust, so I should be able to keep most of the island safe once I can get my units outside my borders.

Lv 3 Archer, I wanted to go for Guerilla III but I think it is useless for fogbusting, maybe Combat I?

After BW I want to go for Masonry and the Pyramids. Probably Writing next? Maybe Fishing or AH to set up 3rd city's food source.

Really need a 2nd Worker, have one queued in the capital. I don't think I had time to build one prior to this then, maybe BW first would have been better in this regard. After that, plan to whip a 2nd Settler and get max overflow into the Pyramids. 2nd city can finish the Archer and then start on a Granary or a MP Warrior.

 

[Berks]

Round 3B - 1920 BC

I tried BW first.

I had 3 barbs come from the NW on the same turn, but none approached my scout. Ended up losing my grassland hill mine to the NW as I needed my Archer to kill 2 barbs on the same tile in the NW. (Had 97% first fight, 90% odds on 2nd fight as the Archer attacked up a hill and over a river) Whipped the Settler on T41 from 6->3. Cleared the barbs out though as I won the same 66.7% fight with the warrior.

Then, disaster!

Lost my Archer at 61.8% odds, had to whip one in the capital. Put the overflow into a Worker. Lost a 2nd warrior at 66.7% odds, and a third at the same odds. Had to whip a 2nd Archer in the capital, my last Archer only had 0.6HP and a full HP warrior was next to it. At least I finished the 2nd worker. Even whipped an Archer in the 2nd city as I only had 1 left!

I lost a LOT of worker turns, I didn't manage to get a mine finished, or any pre-chops done due to dancing around barbs.Had a LOT more barbs spawn this time around, even 1 at the 1 tile i left to the East. So I lost a lot of hammers.

I don't think this play-through means BW first was a bad idea, Fippy's whip timing was great, and BW did save my capital twice.
Maybe Pottery first was actually too risky and I just got good luck to win all the 85+% battles?

Save isn't posted because I forgot to turn on research after BW for several turns. Should have had Wheel available to make roads while I couldn't mine, and Pottery would almost be done.

 

[Berks]

Round 4 – 1000 BC

Secured Mids with 2 basically max overflow whips, and several chops. Took no risks with barbs, and got third city built and Writing. Quite pleased with my play this round.

T53: 2 more barbs come out of the fog.
T54: Setup defensive positions on hills. Worker starting on third mine.
BW in, adopt Slavery. Turn off research but queue up Masonry (6)
Whip worker with 24h of overflow.

T55: Masonry research turned on, 5T to completion. Kill warrior with no loss of HP. Move worker off the mine, start Cottage. Use superarcher to defend 2nd mine. 1 more archer sighted. Overflow put into an Archer. 2nd worker starts pre-chops.
T56: Start Settler in Capital using remaining overflow. Archer wins
T58: Stop Settler at 39/100. Start Granary.
T59: 3rd mine finished. Micro tiles to give me 29H in Granary in 2 turns.
T60: Masonry in, turn off research. Third site is going to be between Copper and Pigs north of Capital. This site can easily build/chop a Library while capital works on Pyramids. Workers start heading to Quarry the stone.

T61: Granary at 29H. Start working max food in capital to grow to 6 before Stone is hooked up, so I can do a 6 -> 4 Granary whip with max overflow. I then want to whip the Settler ASAP as I might start losing hammers. I think the extra food from the Granary on the regrow is worth more than saving on hammer decay.
Archers have pushed out of my borders a bit, but still dangers in the fog.

T63: Granary whipped with max overflow into Pyramids, Stone hooked up. Workers sent to chop forests. Working cottages in capital for fastest regrow. Might be a mistake as the 2nd city is working grass forests and the mines are unworked, but my focus is to maximise hammers going into the Pyramids. Great Wall was built 1520 BC, seems a slow paced game still?
Research back on, Writing in 8.

T64: With chop, get 102H into the Pyramids in 1 turn. Still need 2 turns to grow to size 5. 2nd city finishes Archer, starts Granary. I think I want max overflow from this into a Library.

T65: Have now won 5 fights at > 95% and one at 81% against barbs this set. Still chopping Pyramids like mad. Need 2 turns to grow from 5 to 6, havent lost any hammers in the Settler yet.

T68: Hit size 6, 3 pop whip the settler with max overflow, less the 1 hammer that decayed Have also put another 2 chops into Mids. Rework tiles to maximise hammers in Capital. Probably make the final push for mids at size 4. Archers are now fogbusting the 3rd city site.

T69: Get 126H into the Pyramids from overflow whip and chop. Will reach size 4 in 2 turns, then work 3 mines. Still chopping.

T71: Writing in. Turn research off. Select AH as the next tech. Will discuss next tech at round end.
Still need 8 turns for Pyramids even working 3 mines. 3rd city up, going straight for a Library. 2nd city has almost finished Granary, I will 1 pop whip this into max overflow Warrior, then Library – Pyramids can cover any unhappy problems.

T73: Pyramids in 4, no point chopping any more forests. Start on cottages, and a road to the third city. Will then get Copper online. Archers have now expanded my fogbusting network.

T74: Can whip Mids. Barb city spawns on the west coast. I cant see any resources there yet though.
I 2 pop whip Mids to secure them. 2nd city is working cottages so no commerce lost.

T75: Mids in, start Library in capital. Switch into Representation. All cities are building Libraries.

Round 5 Plan:

Priority number 1 is now to get libraries up in all 3 cities and run 2 scientists in all of them. Iam prepared to use 20H chops to achieve this. I think I should ensure I am running scientists first and working cottages second, with mines the third priority next round.

Fourth city could either be the eastern Fish or Western Pigs tile, but I think the Fish is safest.

Have most of the island fogbusted. Superarcher is under threat, but he should win, being in a forest and with combat I.

Not sure if I should use all my 60 gold to tech AH in 6, so I can improve pigs in third city. I think it might be better to save as much gold as possible until I am running scientists.

Tentative plans for scientists is to use first one on Academy, then start saving up for bulbs down the Astro line.

Save and screens attached.

 

[Lain]

Few things that come to mind, in no particular order:

- AH should definitely be teched as soon as possible. Tolosa is not doing anything right now. It's a big drain on your economy. At least a road connection should probably be in place already.

- You have a big happy cap. With that, you always want to get Granaries up first and grow your cities. Opening with a library in a new city is not helpful. Actually, libraries are not that important anyway. You probably want to get Code of Laws in this position (multiple reasons for it) and then run caste system after reaching your happy cap. To get to Code of Laws, rep scientists can be run in your capital + 2nd city.

- Don't like the position of Tolosa. Copper is not important. I might have gone for Fishing here and settled the fish with pigs in 2nd ring. Could be your main GP farm. Could support 5 scientists without starving!

- I am not sold on the whole "whip with max overflow into Pyramids". I didn't do the Math, but you might have got a better date just by staying at happy cap and working all those mines constantly instead.

- Side effect from your whipping: Low population means that fewer units can be supported and you are paying quite a bit of maintenance. 3 GPT might not sound like a lot, but at this stage of the game it definitely hurts you. Especially if it has been like this for a long time.

I might give the map a shot myself. Just to get a better feel for what is possible. Sometimes it's hard to judge as a spectator. For example I feel that expansion could have been quicker despite everything. I'll try.

 

[Berks]

Hi Lain,

Thanks for taking a look & for posting some detailed feedback. Would be great if you gave this game a go. No need for spoiler tags - I'm treating these games as 'training' anyway.

It felt like I was battling Barbs never-ending from T40 to T75. My archers were constantly wounded and unable to move outside my borders.
I actually think this stemmed from my decision to farm the floodplain. If I had built mines first, I could have got more fogbusting warriors out earlier.
Maybe the floodplain farm only works in conjunction with a BW before Pottery, with intentions to whip the Settler?

Tolosa - the idea was to settle a 'hammer' city and use it to build additional settlers and workers to fill my island, so the other cities could focus on working scientists and cottages. I then changed my mind after I settled it, when I realised I could get 15 beakers with just 2 scientists. I think I will switch back to my original plan.

Last point - I did start a road connection, and got this up 2 turns into the next set. I tried to get this up ASAP but this worker was tied down chopping the Pyramids.

Tech - After reviewing my save again, I agree that AH needs to start ASAP, the 6F tile will be very useful. I also agree on building a Granary in that city first. My other 2 cities already have Granaries, so Library is the best build IMO. I have a fogbusting network and warriors already.

GPP - I overlooked settling a main GP farm with so few food tiles. I thought a better plan would be to pop 1 GS per city. Definitely could be wrong on this!

Pyramids - I got Masonry T60 and finished T75. I had a 39H Settler prior to starting the build (I did not want to start without Stone). I assume you would want to finish the Settler at least given the number of hammers invested.

Tentative math - I could have put 29H into the Settler instead of Granary and get to 68H. Need another 32H to finish. Lets say I 2 pop whip settler from 6 -> 4 on T63, same turn I whipped the Granary. 28 overflow hammers, plus I can work Corn + 3 mines - 11H - for 12 turns - 160H. Chopped 5 Forests - 100H. 260H x 2 = 520H.
So I finish Pyras around the same time, but I am size 5 or 6, with no Granary. I think that option is superior.
I could have also started Pyras without Stone on T60, and got around T72??


Also note, my pop was quite high for most of the set, I went 6 -> 4 (gran whip) -> 6 -> 3 (settle whip) -> 4 ->2 (Pyra whip)
The final whip into Pyras was a mistake too. I was getting tired and wanted to finish the set, and did not want to post that I lost pyras after managing to micro so well.
I could have made do with a bunch of fail gold and used that to power to say Monarchy, to increase happy cap that way.

Will play the next round now.