[BTS] Deity Gilgamesh Fun Times

[Henrik75]

Hi all, posting another map for imm/deity players to try out, this time we're playing Gilgamesh on deity, it's not extremely hard but is moderately challenging especially in the opening.

He's an above average leader imo and excellent in the early to mid game. Try this map out and leave comments below telling me how it goes!

Starting Position
https://pasteboard.co/JQKO53T.jpg

Map Details

Spoiler :

Fractal Map, High Sea Level, 6 Rivals, Non-isolation, Tropical Climate

My outcome

Spoiler :

Ended up winning domination at 1605AD without any reloads or retries, although I'm sure it can be done better.

I recently started youtubing Civ 4 deity games, you can find my pov of this game and several others in my signature. If you have any tough immortal maps or winnable deity games (i'm not as good as lain) you can send me them in PM and I would love to play them on video.

Cheers, Henrik.

 

[krikav]

Now thats some annoying forests blocking the way for the settler toward the PH 1S of the rice.
Gilgamesh is always good fun, you can be such a bully in the early game, settle a hilltop city near some AI and taunt them with protective archers inside while you steal their resources or even smash them with vultures.

Will try to stay focused on the Peter game now though, but might join up later! (ofcourse I will)

 

[Pangaea]

Okay then. Bye.

Spoiler :

Long game. But better to quit now than in 4000 years. Two bastards like that in the same turn, after barely starting the game? Sod it.

 

[krikav]

Sorry, no detailed writeup.

Spoiler T91 :

Walked 2 turns to that PH, saves 3 turns on the worker and then one turn to reach the rice, so +2 turns!

I went mining->BW when I saw Monty was close by, was relieved to find copper close by. Very good second city spot!
Went heavy on workers early on, 3-4?
Then I calmed down and figured I should save forests for a construction rush, so the worker where abit unhappy with me about that.
Think I did a mistake settling Kish where I did first, as I could have gotten that western fish spot too from Pacal if I had just the mind god gave geese and block him off there.
I wanted to unload the pigs from capital at that point though.
I did build a couple of vultures and was hoping Monty would DoW early for some GGeneral points and action, but as the game went on I got more and more scared of him, gifted that city to him rather late, only to meet Washington who was his worst enemy a pair of turns later.
I did swap EP to him as I could steal things for cheap in that city I gifted, and I'm also building the ziggurats to get points for free, also a nice specialist to hire. Getting a GSpy would at low odds would be very much welcome.

I have room for a fifth city, but don't think really want to sit tight with just 5.

Went for HBR as tradebait for alpha, it worked out somewhat OK but not as good as I thought it would.

First GSci is out but torn about what to do with him, I kind of want to do the academy so I can reach compass quickly for tradebait, or perhaps construction even though it's likely to get up for trade soon (2-3 got it) to start building elephants and catapults.
But then again, if I sprint CoL myself I could bulb philosophy. Pacal might make a run for it though, will see in a turn or so.
Don't think Wang will go philo right now when he got DoWed by Boudica.

Monty is my prime target, Pacal will have elephans of his own.

 

[krikav]

It's a fun map!

@Henrik75

Spoiler :

I like the cramped situation, nice to not having to micro a dozen cities.

Spoiler T128 :

A pair of turns later, I see that he is going for Feud, I also realized that with his two cities there, he would steal my corn in notime, so I decided to do abit of quick opportunistic warfare.

It didn't seem like he built any catapults nor any elephants, despite being able to do so, but after these two cities I did not push my luck any further. This quick ramble was enough to get my a GGeneral for a medic, and to push back his culture abit.
Next turn he was willing to talk and give me Poly. I pillaged what I could reach to set him back as much as I could, and then demanded he would enter HR+Paganism.
I spread out the HAs for city garissons, deleted warriors and just continued to tech.

Boudica Asked me to join the war against Wang, and Monty asked me to join up against Washington, I agreed to all. Seems like the peaceweight have set the teams up solid.
When I reached aestethics I finally got some trades, construction+gold from Boudi, and MC+gold from Kublai. Monot+gold for aestethics next turn from Pacal, as I want him to build wonders for me.
I think the window for a construction attack on Monty is closing fast, but Pacal is almost always squishy so probably can attack him later. In any case both of them have almost all their cities on flatland.

I tagged along for some fun with Monty. In total I think I pillaged about 150g, the HAs also managed to kill of some injured units that hapend to stand next to that forested hill.

I went litterature->drama after aestethics->poly, and once I was at drama I made peace with Wang (the others had already made peace) for 60g, then I sold Drama to him for 370g.
Also got Currency from Boudi for litt+drama and Calendar for drama+100g from Kublai.
After this, I went into OR to get forges done and get some boost on the failgolding from the marble wonders.

T116 Monty makes peace with Washington, and I do the same, Washington even gives me 1gpt in a peace treaty. ^_^
I then beg 80g from Monty to keep me safe and give him 10 turns to think about who needs to die that isn't me.

Washington had apparantly been building MoM while Monty was raining down hell upon him. Quite the balls!

Pacal is sweet and finishes a nice wonder.
I did go to CS but one turn after I finish it almost all AIs get it too so I didn't get any trade value at all.
At CS I revolted 1 turn to bur+paci. Choose to remain in slavery as I don't really have food to support any large push for GPeople yet, but I can still trickle in some points.

I think I have a good chance to get Taj, have been trying to grow Kish to do that task.
Working on the second GPerson now and running scientists+engineers and also some spies. A GEng could rush taj and GScientists I need to bulb edu/lib.
I'm really starting to second guess myself here... Pacal is so weak so I could probably just have ignored tech and just rolled over him with catapults.
But then again, if I can get cuirs soon, perhaps it goes even more smoothly, and I can continue with secundary targets..?

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T151 :

Well.. Everything seemed to work out perfecly. Won lib, I 4-pop whipped Taj to completition because I was afraid Pacal would finish it, but that was probably abit on the cautious side.
Held research a turn now and got guilds from Monty because that would give me a slight boost toward gunpowder.
Just swapped to vass/theo to get alot of promoted HAs/Elephants out, no trade mission in the pipeline, but some failgold from heroic is comming.
But only natural cashflow at 0%, and some tech-selling should give me enough to upgrade at least 15 cuirs, then I could go on with conquest gold.
Have placed spies in Mayapan and Mutal, ready to do revolts T156 and T157 when I take those cities.

Oh, whats this little red note...? Knights require iron, yeah alright.
Wait... Cuirs require iron too. I don't have any iron!! Aaaaargh, noone has iron for trade. Ooooomg omg omg.

Thats abit embarassing!
Fuuuuuck.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler Small update T151 :

A small glimmer of hope, Kublai does have two sources of iron.

He is stuck in a war with Boudi though, not sure how they got tangled, they where both fighting Wang together for thousands of years.

Update map.

Now, PLEASE hook up that iron, I'll pay you anything!

 

[Henrik75]

@krikav interesting, we played very differently

Spoiler :

Yeah you have both copper and horses(2!) nearby, but no iron until taking a civ out pretty much. I saw monte built the great lighthouse and that just confirmed to me the correct choice was to attack and eliminate him, and got my iron in the process. Although Cuirs is probably better, by the time I got through monte pacal was already surging ahead and I just went straight to an engineering rush for him, then wiped out the rest of the map with trebs or cannons.

 

[Henrik75]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Enjoy some treb vs rifle action? was probably the highlight of the game conquering grenadier,cuirs,rifle washington with just medieval troops. check out 27:25 on my recording

 

[krikav]

@Henrik75

Spoiler :

I have a certain fondness for unusual and less used tactics. So normally I just try other things rather than cuirs.
But I have realized that I do need to practice this more common tool too, as I'm not really that good with it.
My total blunder in this game was a good reminder to me about that.

I also have been trying for some games now to manage to combine cuirs+airships to try out that combo.

In this game though, I started with city revolts and espionage against pacal, and he had built two scotland yeards and abit later I got constitution from Monty in a trade so I could build some jails, so I have just continued with revolts now.

But in my view, there is nothing as satisfying as medieval warfare. Slogging along slowly with a invincible sturdy doomstack slowly picking off city after city, thats so sweet.
I have started to watch the first video of yours, and I can't agree on your settlement, on that PH gets the rice improved so much quicker.
But I DO agree on your HA rush, thats almost certainly what the map called for, but I didn't see that for some reason.

 

[Henrik75]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Yeah idk. As much as I like plains hill settles I also make some unpopular choices and try to think outside the box a little. I settled south soon as i saw the river continue down there and wanted cottage cottage cottage, just have a tendancy to strive for a riverside cottage spammed capital if its available, and not giving up the food. I actually overlook turns saved on improving first/second food when i settle my first sight, so that's probably a good point and something I should consider in future. I also should have plonked a fourth city, south west somewhere to steal the corn from pacal on first ring and the calander stuff, probably would have been a good investment but I am forgetful as I play roughly about twice the speed of Lain (This game only took me 4 hours I belive) but obviously results in overlooking a lot of things and forgetting micromanagement...

The idea of horse archer rush sparked obvious to me when I examined the UUs of my neighbours. I read/heard somewhere that AI have a tendancy to build their UU higher than normal units, so Pacal's Holkan are not exactly ideal, plus he's a great techer and could get early feudalism (didn't have enough points on him to know) and then there's montezuuma, with Jaguars, a DOWNGRADE from Swordsman; and swordsmen are probably just as strong as spears when they have combat II, city and fortification bonus. Also he built the great lighthouse! also no hill cities! and the fact he could kill me any time. So many things that whispered GO FOR MONTE in my ears.

 

[krikav]

@Henrik75

Spoiler :

Yeah, I'm absolutely amazed at how quickly you play.
I just finished up the game and it says 17:48 for me, and although I did leave the game running alot I still must have played 8-10 hours. But I do get alot of enjoyment from tweaking the small things and micromanaging.

I like the treb vs rifle assult, shows clearly how quantity is it's own source of quality.
A neat trick that you can use in the future, courtesy of @Kaitzilla is that you can sabotage the walls of a city. If you do, then both walls+castle gets disabled, it's quite cheap too.
And if you do that, bombarding down cultural defence becomes super easy with trebs, either with fewer promoted to bombard, or just noone promoted to bombard, still takes waaay fewer.

Kublai did hook up his iron, but by a weird coincidence Pacal pops iron just the turn I reach gunpowder, so I trade with him instead so I don't have to pillage my resource to cancel the deal with Kublai.

Most cities where done with revolt, last city Uxmal up north I just zerged with some elephants I had left over.
He was gone T168.

After I had declared on pacal, I mostly just grew and ran some specialists, after pacal and once Monty finished constitution I gave him MT+gunpowder for constitution (felt weird giving my target that, but ok). Then I ran a paci-push.
Setting up and microing these things takes alot time, likewise I like constantly refitting tiles with the workers, swapping windmills<->mines, farms<->workshops.
These high sea level maps are nice because then it's manageable.

I got alot of GPeople, a 2person GA and then a 3PersonGA, both after I got MoM. Also rushed Ironworks and did an infiltration.

Monty had been plotting forever (started when we where friendly). I wanted him to deplete both himself and Washington, but he never seemed to get on with it.

Untill he did. I think Wash bribed Wang on him right away too. Monty looks scary on this end, but on the other side toward me, it's just longbows and some muskets. Wang came up with a pretty respectable stack and just trade it for about half of Montys, but Monty still had enough units to push through and Get Washingtons Washington.

Alot of revolts against Monty too. The evil fiend got democracy and started to build those nasty defense buildings. :|

Monty got that city just when he wanted to capitulate, so he gave me in the deal.
I right away started the second GA.

From here on, it's mostly just mass whipping and drafting, zerging and chain-capping. But I think it's worth to point out how lean and efficient the war against Pacal+Monty have been up to this point.
I seem to have upgraded 27HA/Elephants to Cuirs, and built 12 more, only lost 13 in total and now still have 26 standing.
Nice price for two AIs land and a vassal.
Ofcourse, all the revolt haven't been cheap and only the first few cities on both AIs where done at -50% discount.
But running spy specialists with jails (+50%) and nationalism (another +25%) and especially in the cities with Scotland yard (+100%!), quickly racks up the points.

Toward the end I was cold-whipping units every turn in every city I could, and likewise drafting muskets to just stand around. Wanted to bump up power rating and possibly get faster capitulations.
I did rush IW in Washington, and had a GGeneral there ready to make a military academy too, and did whip out some cannons, but only one poor guy made it to the front in time.

 

[krikav]

@Henrik75 I enjoyed that map alot, nice break from the masochistic maps I have been playing lately.
Appreciate you putting up content on youtube too, I have subscribed and will check out more. (But who has time watching games when you can play games, huh?)
You should perhaps start a collection thread here on CFC, similar to Lains thread?
I would not at all mind tagging along for more fun games like this one.

And I promise I'll go medieval more in the future!!

 

[Henrik75]

@krikav

Spoiler :

You got a better date than me anyway, so well played. I haven't expanded much on the idea of espionage economy much other than putting points on someone and seeing what they're doing or doing a revolt or two. In my game I did attempt to take the walls down but didn't have enough points, and had plenty of trebs anyway so didn't see the real need to turn up my slider for it, at one point I literally took down Washington's 100% castle defense straight to zero with just my trebs in one turn! KABOOM. yes it nearly deafened me since i was using a headset. Cuirs/Cavalry probably would have worked here for a better date since it's such a long walk to get to the rest of the continent, but ah well. I might try the physics + cuirs combo. Wonder if you could do something crazy like Lib Physics, use the GS to bulb something on the way to cuirs, then tech to cuirs shortly after. Might experiment a bit on immortal. The Physics Rush!

The thing is i'm nowhere near Lains level of accuracy, knowledge and creativity in thinking, I can't play most "tough deity maps" yet and I'm still learning myself. I think I started civ 4 properly in April last year, at warlord difficulty and slowly climbed up. I played many years ago back when the game first came out as a child doing random stupid stuff on chieften and never finishing games. But at the very least i'm very comfortable on immortal, regardless of the map type. My isolation/semi isolation gameplay is pretty weak and I can't perform well on that that on deity so it would be pretty sad. Im probably a lot closer to absolute zero's level than lains. But if you enjoyed that map I'll continue posting more exciting ones which I play and upload to youtube. Got another one going right now but it's an immortal fractal map.
https://imgur.com/a/aaG59py

As far as watching videos goes, I quite enjoy spending tons of hours watching lain and absolute zero; absorbing knowledge, seeing what works and what doesnt work, AZ is extremely entertaining meanwhile I fall asleep watching Lain but learn so much so quickly from him. Sometimes I'll crack open civ 4, slam myself into deity and start making stupid mistakes or rushing my gameplay, and going, "you know this isn't gonna work" and just realizing i'm not in the mood, then hop into bed on my tablet and watch some vids instead. Think I've almost done every single deity game from AZ and rewatched a couple even.

 

[Henrik75]

Also what mod do you use to change the apperance of the tiles and make it look more pretty with the greener grass etc

 

[krikav]

Also what mod do you use to change the apperance of the tiles and make it look more pretty with the greener grass etc

Thats blue marble, very nice and easy to install. Doesn't interfere with any mod.
http://www.civfanatics.net/bluemarble/content/index.php

I have no idea why I played without it for so many years, because when I see screenshots from people playing w/o it, it really hurts my eyes.

 

[krikav]

Regarding physics... Well, not sure that it can be used that way. Perhaps the free GSci from physics can be used for a GA to speed up the rest of the teching perhaps.
The approach might require getting a lucky trade for SciMeth, other than that I think you just need really high techingpower. Maybe a good map for GLH or some insane burocap?
I have tried to get there for some games now (NC271 and this game) but haven't gotten it to work yet.
It was @shakabrade who did it in NC269 and it looked so sweet so I wanted to try it out too.


Regarding espionage... I'm no expert myself, but I have learned what I think are the most useful and common tricks.
The city revolt is ofcourse nice, but it's very expensive and something you usually can't afford until late in the game.

For medieval warfare, it's just that demolish wall trick, and it doesn't really cost much.
Some commerce generated in a city faaar faaar away from the battlefield can be used to save very valuable trebuchet-turns right in the heat of the action.
It's sort of the same as upgrading HAs->Cuirs. You get fighting power for commerce.
Say a city has 100% defence and a castle, you need 25 trebuchet-turns to bombard it to 0. (Or 17 trebuchet-turns if you promote them for bombardment).
If you blow up the walls, then you just need 6 trebuchet turns (4 if promoted).
If you attack with 10 trebuchets, that means all the differance in the world. Stay outside and bombard 3 turns, or strike the same turn you bombard.
Other than that, I don't know much of relevance.

Then it's the tech-stealing, and that can be super powerful if you set it up properly, getting techs at absurd commerce discounts.
On the top of the hat it can go like this:
You have tao holy city and is in tao, you gift away a city 3 tiles away from your capital to an AI that doesn't run tao. That city has been generating at least some culture for some turn.
In that city, you have had spies stationary for at least 5 turns.
You close borders with other AIs, so that you get traderoutes with that tiny city you just gifted.
Then you get discounts: -50% for culture, -50% stationary spy, -40% state religion, -20% traderoutes, +8% distance.
Adds up to 0.5*0.5*0.6*0.8*1.08 = 0.13, 13% of base cost. (And base cost is 1.5 of beaker cost), so 13*1.5= 20.
You get techs for 20% of what they cost beaker-wise.
And then prior to that, while generating espionage-points, you can get very nice modifiers too, jails give +50% right away.

What I have done is that I have seen people do these things, and then I have set up things and tried it out myself. And once you know enough of the pieces of the puzzle... or the tools at your disposal or how to put it best, well then it becomes possible to see when playing a game, if it's appropriate.

April last year? You learn fast it seems.

 

[5tephen]

@Henrik75
I've nearly finished watching your videos of this map. Thanks for sharing them.

I've watched a lot of Lain's videos which are amazing. It's very useful to see a less micro intense style - I definitely felt I picked up some 'big picture' thinking from your videos.

It's good to see someone winning deity with cider in hand!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

...

For medieval warfare, it's just that demolish wall trick, and it doesn't really cost much.
Some commerce generated in a city faaar faaar away from the battlefield can be used to save very valuable trebuchet-turns right in the heat of the action.
It's sort of the same as upgrading HAs->Cuirs. You get fighting power for commerce.
Say a city has 100% defence and a castle, you need 25 trebuchet-turns to bombard it to 0. (Or 17 trebuchet-turns if you promote them for bombardment).
If you blow up the walls, then you just need 6 trebuchet turns (4 if promoted).

....

Then it's the tech-stealing, and that can be super powerful if you set it up properly, getting techs at absurd commerce discounts.
On the top of the hat it can go like this:
You have tao holy city and is in tao, you gift away a city 3 tiles away from your capital to an AI that doesn't run tao. That city has been generating at least some culture for some turn.
In that city, you have had spies stationary for at least 5 turns.
You close borders with other AIs, so that you get traderoutes with that tiny city you just gifted.
Then you get discounts: -50% for culture, -50% stationary spy, -40% state religion, -20% traderoutes, +8% distance.
Adds up to 0.5*0.5*0.6*0.8*1.08 = 0.13, 13% of base cost. (And base cost is 1.5 of beaker cost), so 13*1.5= 20.
You get techs for 20% of what they cost beaker-wise.
And then prior to that, while generating espionage-points, you can get very nice modifiers too, jails give +50% right away.

...

Excellent information and tips. You're right, blowing up walls sappers-style seems worth it. It also solves the problem of how much siege versus units for how many cities.

Sorry for being the "... well technically..." nerd but I do have a math question. Is this how the discounts work? My impression is 1 / (1 + 0.5 (culture) + 0.5 (stationary) + 0.4 (state religion) + 0.2 (trade routes) - 0.08 (distance) ) = 39.7% of base espionage cost, or 1.5*39.7% = 59.5% of tech cost.

Otherwise, with two great spies, you can basically clear out all the classical-era techs and then some.

 

[Henrik75]

Probably can't bulb anything fancy with gs from physics since i think electricity is next.
You can bulb edu, lib, printing press and scimeth all with GS, so if you pump out enough guys (play someone philosophical) i bet its doable on deity but I'll test it on immortal first for safe keeping. I would say it's slightly easier than libbing rifling since you don't need guilds and banking but scimeth costs more than replaceable parts. Also, entire path can be bulbed.

edit: NVM forgot about astrononmy. Blegh. could probably trade for it on deity but not so much on imm. The nice thing is though you can get to rifling fairly quickly after.

Going to try out blue marble, looks good!

@5tephen ya glad you liked it, I'll continue posting games. Sometimes a little drink makes me think better