Deity Game - Playthrough - 1

[Rusten]

Pangea deity leads to the extremes. Either an extremely easy game with plenty of trading partners or an extreme headache. I recommend playing B&S (or continents) instead when learning if this game doesn't work out.

edit: It's certainly doable, but you will need to use a lot of advanced tricks.

 

[Fippy]

Yup..or if all AIs are wanted on 1 continent, Ring is fun.
Cannot start in the middle of everything, even land distribution.

 

[Lain]

There is one reason to go BW/Archery first here and it's not about being objectively stronger. It's about not losing. When Genghis Khan shows up with 3 Axes/2 Spears in 2200 BC, neither horses nor a super-duper cow tile will help. Ability to burst out a few defenders seems necessary. And I don't think doing all of Hunting/AH/Archery/Mining/BW is possible by T40.

I rarely ever go AH in a situation like this (multiple AI around you), because an early declaration even by someone like Gandhi is the #1 way to lose. Horses don't help. 5x Grassland Pig and 1x Dry Rice, I would still go Agriculture and farm the pig or chop/mine something, make sure defense is up. AH equalizing / being better mid-term is meaningless when you are dead already.

Might try this one, I would remove the jumbos via WB though for a challenge.

 

[Pedro78]

Hmm this kind of map is extremely luck-dependant. If you manage to avoid early DoW or can stay at war with at most one neighbour, then the game is easy. If everyone DoWs you early on it's unwinnable. I don't think there is a reliable way to win this map consistently. The "safest" way would probably be Lain's Archer stacking crawling method

If I had to choose one way to play this one, though, I'd probably just play it the "normal" way (by that I mean keeping the game as economically optimal as reasonably possible), and just accept an early loss if it comes to that. Playing the "hard" way is just too boring, and not every map is winnable every time..

 

[SittinDown]

whelp - I'm alive....

Playing the best diplomacy I can, based on the great advice I've seen on this thread so far. Really enjoying the lively discussion.

I'm not going to back-track in this game, but I'm interested in how @BornInCantaloup 's save pans out, since he got the Pig / Horse site from Toku, thus denying Toku from any offensive resources. Looks interesting, but I'd like to see if how it goes with the diplomacy situation.

Spoiler :

• Building roads to connect trade network, and connect up my ivory and horses.
• Built up a couple of archers. Ran out of things to build, so I was forced to build units or barracks.
• Ragnar asked me to join a war on Egypt. I did.
• Decided to settle NE and give that to Tokugawa, which moved him to pleased, and I opened borders with him.
• Mongolians have metal after all. -- but still haven't started plotting.
• Looks like Toku doesn't so far. So, no copper, but maybe still Iron.
• Toku and Carthage are buddies, and Toku got alpha from Carthage.

• Way behind on worker activity - I'm working shamefully bad tiles, and I don't have pottery yet to start cottaging, and I'm not sure what I would whip in the capital to benefit anything. Working on pottery than writing so I can start getting a GS. I'm pretty far behind, but I'm not dead, and staying out of trouble so far. Can probably hold ground with archers for a bit. ....is masonry a good idea after writing for hill walls, given the situation, or would math -> construction be a better bet?

...here's the diplomatic situation:

• ideally, I can gain some points on Ragnar soon. I'm +3, but still cautious. I haven't had a chance to improve relations with Ghengis yet.

Save attached.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Good work staying alive SittnDown!

Pleased with Toku and open borders, very very nice.
Toku has Alphabet?
He only trades techs that 100% of the AI knows, so that means every single AI has Pottery, Writing, and Iron Working.

You also get a teching bonus for a tech if AI's know it and you've met them.
If all the AI in the world know it, and you've met all of them, then you get a 30% teching bonus.
If 1 out of 6 know it, then a 5% teching bonus.
If 2 out of 6 know it, then a 10% teching bonus.
Deity AI always start with Hunting and Archery and all starting techs, so meeting them is a great way to boost research.

Prerequisite techs also give a +20% teching bonus for each prereq tech.
Agriculture has none, so no bonus.
Pottery has both Fishing and Agriculture leading to it, so if you know both techs before researching Pottery, then you get two 20% bonuses.

The max for Pottery is having both Agriculture and Fishing already researched, and knowing all the world who all have Pottery.
This gives +20%, +20%, and +30% bonus to teching, or +70%.

If you tech Pottery with +20 and press next turn, then hover over the bar at the top of the screen, it will say 20*1.70 = +34 completed.

==========

Gnnn, you probably want more better advice.

Ok, since you are Pleased with Toku and he is willing to trade techs, it is time to consider begging.
Begging civs that are Pleased or Friendly with you gives no diplo penalties.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/land-target-and-manipulating-the-ai.561148/

I won't make you do the math since your eyes will glaze over, but you touch 10 of Toku's land tiles with your land tiles so you are a Land Target in his eyes.
That means you can beg triple the amount of normal!!!
Let's see, know Toku around 33 turns, Power Ratio isn't visible since not enough on Tokugawa, but I'm guessing around 0.3?
The formula for the amount you can beg is GOLD*2=TECH*1.5=Begging_Ceiling = [floor(((Turns_Known + 50) * 2 * (Our_Power + 100))/(Their_Power + 100)) * 3 if Land Target]
You want to beg a technology, so TECH*1.5=[floor(((33+50)*2*(??? thousand Soldier from Demo screen + 100))/(??? thousand Soldiers Toku has +100))*3 yes to land target

Gonna have to guess here.
SittnDown has so few troops, the +100 in the power calculation will help him a lot more than Tokugawa.
TECH*1.5 = 88*2*(0.3???)*3 = 158
TECH = 158/1.5 = 105

So, with your weak (probably) Power Ratio with Toku, I would estimate that you can beg up to 105 from Tokugawa.
I can't give you an exact number unless you know precisely what turn you met Toku, and have enough on Toku to get a Power Ratio to go with your Demo screen troops.

Basically, tech Writing until you have 100 left to finish it, then beg Tokugawa for Writing and he should give it to you if you haven't already begged him.
Each beg has a 5% chance of being forgotten each turn, and you can't beg again successfully until they have forgotten the previous beg.
So it should be safe to beg around every 25 turns.

I would be shocked if Toku refused you, but you can't be that much weaker than him, especially with the +100 helping you out.
Be sure to sign Open Borders with everyone.

==========

More mundane advice, you need more than 2 Workers.

Riverside Farms that 2 cities can share are the best.
Being Philo, river farms are more valuable than cottages, especially in this heavy whipping scenario.

Library in capital is best since the Palace gives +8
You probably won't steal the pigs since that Toku city also has borders popped twice.
You would need Library in capital, a city 1S of Pigs, and then a Library in that city also to steal the pigs.

A better choice for a 4rd city might be on the jungle hill south of the Corn.
It can borrow the Corn to grow and also get some farms.

That really slows down the Math bulb though since you don't have Granaries yet, hmm
Boston can farm the Floodplains and 2 river tiles to get up to +6

I'd recommend Workers in Boston and New York, and 3 pop-whipping Libarary in capital after the Toku beg, then working 2 Scientists at Size 4.
Hannibal already has Math, so a Math bulb later than 12 turns from now might not be able to be traded for anything.

Ideal scenario is to bribe Genghis and Toku to war against Jewish Egypt with Math, then maybe trade Math for one or two techs with the rest.

Getting Alphabet is tough because Deity AI only give around 78% of the tech value in trades.

 

[fjordan]

@Kaitzilla: Wouldn't it be better to beg for gold? Deity AI usually swims in gold. For the AI 1 = 1 , but as you described for the player it is 50% as much due to the prereq bonus.

Good thing you keep playing SittinDown, nice to see all the tricks of the book again and you are going to need them. If you win this you can consider yourself a true Deity player, even with all the help you get here.

 

[Kaitzilla]

@Kaitzilla: Wouldn't it be better to beg for gold? Deity AI usually swims in gold. For the AI 1 = 1 , but as you described for the player it is 50% as much due to the prereq bonus...

Gold is usually better ya.
It can benefit from both Libraries and Prereq bonuses most times.

If an empire had no multipliers at all, it might be better to beg for the science beakers.
Also, getting Writing 3 turns earlier in SittinDown's game means getting Math 3 turns earlier, which is far more important than any gold.
So sometimes there might be strategic considerations.

 

[Fippy]

Not sure if already mentioned (by Kai in his excellent posts), but my first thought on your game would be..
5g unit cost? Waaay too much in fear of getting attacked
Most units should be emergency whipped & chopped when the worst case happens, cos unlike human opponents AIs will rarely have brilliant war plans.

Combined with 92g gathered (i dun understand that part, did you use 0% research for that long) you are hugely lacking behind in important economy techs (pottery and writing).
Games like that are all about reaching HBR & construction, it's important to not let fear take control & keep expenses low, and trying your best to reach stuff like cottages and libraries asap.

 

[SittinDown]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses.

......played to turn 73.

Not sure if already mentioned (by Kai in his excellent posts), but my first thought on your game would be..
5g unit cost? Waaay too much in fear of getting attacked

Doop - corrected. Kaitzilla told me to watch the unit cost, but I got distracted after I DOW'ed Egypt and didn't anything but units to build.

Basically, tech Writing until you have 100 left to finish it, then beg Tokugawa for Writing and he should give it to you if you haven't already begged him.

Good call - I knew about the +5 / +20% stuff, but I didn't know how the Beg mechanics worked. I was able to beg for writing in turn 66, and finish pottery on turn 69 after deleting some units. Suuuper late, I know.

I 3-pop whipped the library on turn 67, and put the spillover into a settler + a chop, so I can settle the jungle hill to the south. Ramses sent a war chariot up my way, but he lost it to an archer I parked in the forest.

• I have 4 workers now, and they're building farms.
• I can convert to Buddhism or Hinduism.
• Mongolia just started plotting now.
• I'm a land target and Mongolia is friends with all his neighbors but me, so I sort of anticipate that he'll DOW me no matter what I do at this point.... though he is annoyed at Ramses, and that's his worst enemy.
• ...if I go Hinduism, Hannibal and Tok will be pleased with me. Going Buddhism won't really help me much. I don't really have any way of getting them to DOW Mongolia. Maybe I can bribe Mongolia against Ramses with Math in 3 turns, if he somehow gets alpha. He says "We have enough on our hands right now." if I hover of bribing a DOW.

Spoiler screenshot :

 

[Kaitzilla]

Uh oh, there is a very high chance Genghis is targeting you.
You need 5 Archers in New York fast!
6 or 7 would be best.
If he DOWs with 10 Swordsman and there is no hope and he will capture it next turn, give New York to Egypt for Peace Treaty, because it is easier to take back a 1 pop city with 0 defenders in 10 turns than take it back from Mongolia.

Math bulb in 3 turns is good.
How many AI have it?

Even if you can't trade it, there are still a fair amount of forests and Horse Archers are on the horizon.

As far as religion goes, I'd recommend taking Buddhism after New York pops borders from Hinduism.
You need the 20% culture defense that a border pop provides.

Trading Math to Tokugawa to DOW Egypt would also be good.
He can only be bribed to war if he is Pleased with you, so it needs to be done before a religion switch which will drop him back to Cautious.
Shared war will eventually bring him back up to Pleased.

Switching to Buddhism will get you to Friendly with Justinian in the future, and Friendly with Ragnar once you adopt and share Hereditary Rule civic with him.

Maintaining good relations with the warmongers involves a lot of shared war.

There really is no way I can see to handle Genghis peacefully.
His -4 border tensions and lack of suitable neighbors to attack means he will be a thorn in your side until he dies.
Can Toku be bribed to attack Genghis instead of Egypt?

 

[SittinDown]

^ With all due respect, Sitting Down has 3 cities.
He can't afford to give one away, let alone New-York which claims both of his strat resources.

The advice as I took it was, whip a bunch of archers to defend New York, and ONLY if I'm about to lose it, gift it to someone else so I can re-conquer it easily. The plan is of course, not to lose it, but losing it to the Mongolians is GAME-OVER, whereas losing it to a different AI is possibly salvagable.

The next plan is certainly to make it offensive. I'm researching HBR, and I'm going to bulb Math in 3 turns and start into Construction immediately. In ~5 turns I can start making HA's, and in about ~15 turns, Elepults.

...that said, this game is probably getting away from me anyway, and I've probably fallen behind, but Genghis has crappy land, and no access to Horses, and isn't close to longbows, so an elepult with some smart diplo should work just fine. may not still win, but I should survive Genghis and possibly kill him with the help of an ally.

 

[Kaitzilla]

^ With all due respect, Sitting Down has 3 cities.
He can't afford to give one away, let alone New-York which claims both of his strat resources.

Playing cautious is fine but... you know Playing super-duper-extra cautious is just suicidal. You dig your own grave and, before you know it, you can never come back. Sometimes, you just fall too far behind.
I'd rather advocate rushing to the next military tech. Make it offensive. I hear elephants do well against keshiks. Maybe it works, maybe it fails. Well, if it failed, at least you gave yourself a chance.

Just my 2 cents. Never mind me.

Giving away New York is an absolute last resort.
If Genghis takes it, SittinDown will never be able to take it back.

Giving it to Egypt right before it is 100%-sure-to-be-captured means it can be taken back 10 turns later.
That forces Genghis back because Genghis and Egypt don't have Open Borders (as of Turn 65), and all the defenders can focus the next 5 turns reinforcing the last 2 cities.
Egypt can't produce defenders in a 1 pop city in 10 turns, and the closed borders means he can't march defenders there from the homeland easily.

I've seen cases where the AI was about to take a city, and I gave it away to another AI, and the invaders went back home to reform their stack even larger.
10 turns later they came back, but by then they were willing to talk peace terms.
Gave them a cheap tech for 10 turns of peace, then took back my gifted city from the AI that everyone hated.

Best case is that Genghis attacks some other AI, or he attacks New York but is unable to take it from the hilltop Archers.
SittinDown just needs to buy time until Catapults + War Elephants, and then produce 1 more Great Scientist to bulb Philosophy (still need Alphabet, Meditation, Code of Laws first) to get back into the game.

Genghis attacking Boston would be a surprise since the AI usually targets the city closest to them.
If there is a Warrior left at all, sending them up to scout inside Genghis' lands for the attack stack forming and monitoring it would be good.

Is there a Chariot available anywhere?
It can also take a look up in Genghis' lands to give advance warning of invasion.

The advice as I took it was, whip a bunch of archers to defend New York, and ONLY if I'm about to lose it, gift it to someone else so I can re-conquer it easily. The plan is of course, not to lose it, but losing it to the Mongolians is GAME-OVER, whereas losing it to a different AI is possibly salvagable.

The next plan is certainly to make it offensive. I'm researching HBR, and I'm going to bulb Math in 3 turns and start into Construction immediately. In ~5 turns I can start making HA's, and in about ~15 turns, Elepults.

...that said, this game is probably getting away from me anyway, and I've probably fallen behind, but Genghis has crappy land, and no access to Horses, and isn't close to longbows, so an elepult with some smart diplo should work just fine. may not still win, but I should survive Genghis and possibly kill him with the help of an ally.

Good luck!
There aren't many settings or scenarios harder than this.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Can the wet rice really be stolen by only 1 city with a Library?
Don't forget Byzantines are gonna have 2 cities pushing on Rice in the 2nd ring, which should overpower 1 city with a Library trying to get Rice in the 1st ring if I'm remembering correctly.

The hilltop is easier to defend with Archers and later Longbows.
It can get lots of farms up eventually, so it isn't a hopeless spot for a 4th city.

I think Pigs is easier to steal than the Rice is if the same Library-with-city-in-the-1st ring method is used.
The player capital with Library is already helping there.

**Edit**
Aww, I just checked and Toku actually has culture pressure west of the Pigs, which means he settled very close to those pigs.
There isn't room for a city there with that Byzantine city where it is at.


**Edit 2**
Ya, Post 32 shows just how close Toku settled those pigs.
There was never any chance of getting them at all.
Deity Game - Playthrough - 1

 

[Rusten]

I don't have the game/map open, but if the rice is in Justinian's 2nd ring for both cities then it can definitely be stolen. The base culture output of the city matters very little for these culture wars. What matters is getting to the 20 extra culture per turn thresholds earlier than your opponent. 1st ring rice will be pumping in an extra 20 per turn at 10 culture and 40 per turn at 100. Justinian will only start pumping in extra culture once he reaches 100 in the respective cities which you can mirror with 100 of your own. You just need to make sure you pop your first borders some time before Justinian reaches 100.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The war against Egypt probably can't be turned off with only 3 War success.

A War Chariot has good odds to roll right over a flatland Archer guarding a city.
I'm happy SittinDown managed to kill 1 already.

Alphabet likely won't be gained until Horseback Riding.

Sharing wet corn with 3 cities?
If needed, the cities can borrow corn until size 3 and work 3 farms to then maintain themselves.
One can be chosen to work 2 farms and 2 scientists for the next bulb while the other 2 cities share the +6 corn as needed.

Trying to steal that wet rice feels awful risky if the longterm plan is to get everyone in the world at War with Egypt.

Plus, Genghis is plotting.
Hard to spare more than 1 chop for Granary right now to build a 90 Library.
Don't think Monument or religion spread is an option right now either.

**Edit**
I see in the last screenshot 10xp in the Great General bar, so maybe there is enough war success to Cease Fire now?

 

[Fippy]

In a game like this, success mostly comes from experience and following your instincts.
3 cities are fine (for both HAs and Elepult).
Knowing what you should do to get there fast..more difficult.

Greed for new cities can lead to bad decisions, and so can fear of AI attacks.
They are bad at war, why..cos they are AIs, all we usually need are better units.
Success with deity comes from knowing that 3 cities can beat 10+ AI cities, and full focus on getting stuff like siege, Jumbos, HAs and so on
Looking at score, worry of attacks, being sad about losing that great resi are all things that can be harmful towards that goal.
Sure it's important realizing when you are in danger, but even while defending my main focus is always on getting unit or goal x.
Remember those 5 catapults "stacks" AIs like moving around? Yup, deity does not mean they are smarter now. You can always count on their stupidity.

 

[SittinDown]

Played to turn 89.

• Settled aggressively against the Rice to the South.
• Ramses rolled up with 4 WC's and 2 Swords, and razed the city (but not before the city went into Cultural revolt for Byzantium). ....so, total fail on that one, and wasted a settler and archer, and a lot of war success.
• I whipped some HA's and countered his War Chariots.
• Bulbed Math, but Genghis finished it right before I bulbed, and I couldn't trade it to anybody.
• Miracle.... Genghis and Ragnar DOW'ed Ramses. I my archers defended the hilltop cities well, though with enough losses from getting that city razed that Ramses won't cease fire with me. The remaining forces from Ramses went home for defense. I mopped up a couple of his units with HA's.
• I traded HBR for a few techs, including Masonry and Sailing to Ragnar to get him to pleased. Begged Ragnar for Mysticism a few turns later. I should be able to beg Toko for Meditation soon, though I may have to put a turn into it - I didn't do the math yet.
• Hoping to get to construction soon, and Elepult against Genghis while he's at war with Ramses.
• Finished a Library & Granary in all 3 cities.

Spoiler Screenshots :

thinking of putting a turn into alpha so I can trade it to Justin for HBR. Most people have HBR now.

I'm going to get another GS in 4 turns, and without alpha -> COL, I don't have much useful to bulb, and my capital is so commerce poor, an academy seems like a waste.

Next steps:

• Finish Construction ASAP. Go all-out to attack someone. Ideally someone already at war, whose forces are far from home. I sent my HA up to scout Mongolia to find out where I might attack. He does not have horses or ivory, so he's somewhat limited, and he can't quickly send reinforcements home.
• I played around with growing cities vs running scientists, and saw I could finish Construction 2 turns earlier. But that's still around turn 95.

 

[SittinDown]

that backfired

No worries. I was curious to see if it would work.

 

[bdubbs]

loving this thread, good luck pulling this off.