Deity Game - Playthrough - 1

[SittinDown]

Hello all!

I've been enjoying the @Wrathful Emperor and Immortal write-ups, and I'm still going for my first Deity win. In that same pattern, I'm going to play short turn sets and wait for advice from the pros, and play through until the game is won.

The settings:

• Pangea
  
• Standard Size (6 AIs)
  
• Deity Difficulty
• Standard climate, sea level, etc.
• No Tribal Villages
• No Random Events
• Normal Speed
• not locked modified assets.

I'm have about a 25% success rate on immortal, but have only recently started playing on deity. I have a few weaknesses in my game, the biggest of which is that I usually play too fast.

Leader:

Spoiler :

Lincoln.

Traits: Phi & Cha.
Techs: Agriculture & Fish.

Map:

Spoiler :

Brown river :\ ... wet corn and wet rice, but no commerce. Seems like I should move the warrior SW or SE. SW looks like there's a river that way.

Save file attached.

 

[Izuul]

Sugar is good to settle on when possible. Might move the warrior 1SE onto the plains hill to see if anything would be lost by settling 1NW on sugar. If not, go for that.

 

[SittinDown]

final thoughts....

Spoiler :

This game ended in a loss around the ~140 turn range. We got boxed in heavily around a bunch of war mongers. I held on as long as I could, and even conquered a decent enemy city, but in the end, the neighbors were too strong, and a double DOW was the end of it.

 

[Rusten]

Having locked modified assets enabled means people can't open your saves. Not a big issue, but I thought I'd warn you before you've committed a full week to the game in case you're unaware.

 

[Pedro78]

Having locked modified assets enabled means people can't open your saves. Not a big issue, but I thought I'd warn you before you've committed a full week to the game in case you're unaware.

If you're using the same version of BUFFY you can open saves with lock modified assets, right? (I had no problems loading saves with locked modified assets downloaded on the forums))

 

[Izuul]

This one needs an older version of BUFFY to open, but yeah.

 

[Fippy]

I would add that if your goal is reaching deity, you should play..deity

You would get much good advice for that too, Immortal does little in helping to prepare for much tougher gameplay.
It's not a normal difficulty step, like others, and must be practised.

 

[SittinDown]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I've rolled a new map, bumped difficulty to Deity, and turned off locked modified assets.

First post edited to reflect the changes.

 

[Fippy]

Good to see you play deity

On this start it's useful to scout 1w or 1sw with your warrior, settling there would not actually spend a worker turn (corn in reach now) and can always hope for something good in the fog.

Good food ofc, so commerce becomes the biggest issue.
On deity barbs start rushing in from between turn 35-40 roughly, until then we need either copper / horse or archery usually.
Unless AIs are really close, and warriors can fogbust the rest.

For 1 plains cow, AH would probably be too expensive..standard here should be mining, bw and archery if no copper, wheel if lucky.

 

[SittinDown]

Scouted... haven't moved settler yet.

Spoiler :

Settling next to jungle makes me worry about how long it'll take to get river cottages up.

SIP is very brown, 1SW is good for getting corn up fast, but the land to the SW looks like it'll take a while to be productive, and I imagine that land pressure will come from other directions.

Thoughts?

 

[Rusten]

You can justify almost any location with this start. I like settling 1NE planning to settle a very early 2nd city on the PH by the corn.

That would mean researching AH. I don't agree with skipping it here as there's so much natural commerce. For instance size 3 working lake, river rice and river cows.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Settle in place looks very attractive.
Hilltop cities are very helpful on Deity.

Tech to Bronze Working, and then Archery if no close bronze.
Philosophy and Scientists are what will keep you up in tech later.

 

[SittinDown]

I tended to like the idea of settling on the hill and keeping the corn in the BFC. I liked the idea about settling next to the corn, but I didn't like moving towards the jungle.

Spoiler Turns 0-5 :

• Warrior South to hills reveals Rice to the south. Decide to scout clockwise, and SIP.
• Going to start on mining, but waiting until turn 5 to actually start.
• Turn 4 - meet Justinian, coming from the East.
• Turn 5 - meet Ghengis Khan, coming from upriver to the NW.
• ...so, that's two imperialistic civs nearby, one very aggressive, and one medium aggressive. ...both start with the wheel, so I should be able to research that a little easier when it's time to head to pottery.
• Scouting reveals some plantation resources to the West.
• Culture pop reveals pigs 3W on the River.
• I figured putting spy points on Justinian is the right call.

...so far the plan is to keep scouting clockwise at about that same radius, and

 

[Kaitzilla]

Justinian and Genghis Khan close by in the two directions you want to expand?
The game's strongest civ and a super violent killer hmm.

Whatever religion Justinian gets, you should adopt it.
He is very easy to get to Friendly with shared religion.

Genghis Khan is much harder to manage.
When he isn't plotting war (rare), it should be easy to bribe him to DOW another AI using a tech.
Then DOW the AI which you just got a -2 relations for unleasing Genghis on, and build up shared war diplomacy bonus with Genghis Khan.
Since you are both at war with the same target, that means you can always sign open borders.
Once you form a trade route with him, he will almost certainly demand a resource if you aren't Pleased with him.
You should probably give it to him.

================

Based on the huge amount of land surrounding you, it's hard to say if the barbs or the AI will kill you first.

Even I would be sweating if it was my game.
Expanding towards the useless jungle is no bueno.

Probably I'd say 2nd city on that plains hill near the corn, then fight through barbs, then 3rd city 2S of pigs once capital expands borders again.

The Great Wall is very risky on Deity, especially without a lot of commerce or being an Industrious civ.

 

[SittinDown]

Played until 1st worker built.

Spoiler Turns 5- 15 :

Turn 6 - Vikings to the West.
Turn 7 - Ramses to the West, find the Vikings borders. Justin founds Buddhism.
Turn 8 - Finished mining. Avoided some lions. Found the bottom of Mongolia, he's very close.
Find Jumbos 4N of the capital. (will be a challenge to survive that long.)
Turns 9-15, continued scouting, met Hannibal, and started on BW, Hinduism founded somewhere but nobody converts immediately, so probably wasn't Ramses.

Next steps:

• Builds
  • Build a warrior, grow to 2. I've got low production, so I'll need BW quick.
• Worker plan:
  • Farm the corn. It'll take two turns to get there, but I think it's better to get +2 one turn later than +1.
  • Mine the grass hill on the way back to farming the rice, so I'm not spending so much crisscrossing.
  • Start chopping out a settler once BW is available.
• Settling Strategy:
  • Build a city towards the PH by the corn. Maybe on the PH, or maybe on the flat plains between those lands, so I can grab the green cow. LOTS of FP there, and I have a lot of food resources, so should be a good food site. I think I'll need the extra D and hammer from the hill.
  • Focus on getting that pig city for number 3.
  • Do I try to grab that elephant site if there's food nearby?
  • ...these long rivers make foreign trade routes pretty easy, I just need to connect Washington to the river.
• Diplomacy strategy:
  • Adopt Buddhism when possible. Doesn't look like any other zealots yet. Hinduism was founded, but nobody converted to it yet, or I didn't meet them yet.
  • Looks like a lot of tougher AI's here - but maybe it shouldn't be too hard to get them to start fighting each other.

 

[Fippy]

The good news, barbs should not be a big problem with so many AIs around you.
Bad news, they are bad AIs

If no bronze, hunting next looks good.
Speeds up AH and gives archery option.
AH would def be much better than archery, if barbs are tame.

Jumbos are always a huge priority with such AIs close, so we should aim at 3N1W of your cap as first city i think. PH can share Rice, good city.
Think it would be wise to not move your warrior far away from there, after checking what's available.

 

[SittinDown]

To turn 23 - finished BW, no metals - starting on hunting.

Spoiler :

Not much going on - Carthage adopts Hinduism. There was a barbarian archer roaming around 2W of my warrior, but moved away. My power ratio with Byzantines went from .1 to .3, despite not building a unit yet - is that because Washington grew from 1-2, or did Justinian lose an archer to a barbarian?

Farmed the Rice first for the extra commerce before farming the corn. Corn will be done in 4 turns. When I'm done with the farm I'll start chopping. Seems like going into slavery soon is a good idea, since with 2 strong food tiles, whipping seems smart. Just and Hannibal both have 3 cities already.

Should I grow to 4 and whip the settler? I'm going to need to fog bust pretty soon to the south - barbarians love jungles, and I don't see a lot of jungle hill to stand ground in effectively.

 

[Gwaja]

You are a brave man to tackle Deity! My hats off to you! ^_^ I feel too comfortable in Immortal and I hate being stressed in games, so I always chicken out. Rather, I take joy in creating unbearable and miserable maps just because I like creating things. I will be rooting for you and keeping an eye on your progress. All the guys and gals commenting in this thread will be tremendously helpful in your progress. There were days when I used to post write ups with bunch of pictures and stuff, but I need more motivation to start doing it again. ^_^

 

[Snowbird]

If warrior in the last picture is fogbusting... he is likely in the most useless position possible...

Power ratio --- finishing BW? some techs counts for power.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Jumbos are always a huge priority with such AIs close, so we should aim at 3N1W of your cap as first city i think. PH can share Rice, good city.

Agreed that seems to be the better plains hills to settle on. Better than 3W. It doesn't claim extra food but at least there's an important resource.
I'm not a huge fan of going Bronze first on such a map (over AH) but it's certainly defensible.

There's a very nicely laid brain-teaser to the West of Washington.
- A city 2S of the cows blocks a huge amount of land, due to Genghis' northern city location. Cities must be spaced at least 3 tiles. 2S of the cows is an excellent long-term spot (food, prod, rivers). It's not very well fitted for a 2nd city, however, claiming only floodplains in its first ring (weaker tiles than you could hope for).
- As such, a location more suitable for city 2 (Western area, discounting that ivory tile) would be SE of the cows (strong tile first ring). It probably ends up with more cultural pressure than the above choice. Ragnar/Genghis could settle East of the corn, for example, instead of being forced West/North. It also gives less control over the SW against Ragnar (banana, dyes). It's also settling a flatland city in the face of Genghis. So, there are plenty of inconvenients with the location that develops the easier.

I'm not saying the tile 2S of the cows should be settled asap but it's certainly an interesting tile. Possibly mesmerizing. Note that it's compatible with Fippy's jumbo city.
Since it would be so slow to develop and a long-term powerhouse, 2S of the cows wouldn't be a very suitable location to help with worker/settler production. Ideally, it would go straight Granary into Library.
I'm quite sure the pigs to the East should be scouted more thoroughly before decing on a location for city 2.