Deity Help

[kevtrev]

I usually lose on Deity. My games tend to go 1 of 3 ways:

-Get boxed in, get DOWed, die horribly

-Get boxed in, try to break out, fail, die horribly

-Have enough land, get swarmed by countless barbs, a) die horribly or b) build enough defenders but lose all my city spots, get boxed in, see above.

You get the picture.

This map I'm posting has promise, and I want your advice before I play on any further. It's a random roll on Standard/Normal/Pangaea, my usual settings.

The start

Spoiler :

The situation at 1000 BC

Spoiler :

I've attached the 4000 BC save in case anyone wants to shadow.

 

[Seraiel]

Uh, low food capital and no writing at 1000 BC. Not sure if you'll have a chance with this game. You can easily get a lot of decent land, but catching up in Tech could be difficult. If you get a Great Spy, use him to explore the map before you steal your way to victory. If you get a GE, think about using him doe bulbing.

You need to develop your land. You can't run 5 cities from 1 Gold and some food. Consider running normal citizen Specialists to enhance your tech.

 

[Seraiel]

Build Granaries and a Library somewhere, maybe the capital, maybe not. Depends on if you just wanna speed up GP-production or if you want an Academy.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

At first glance, it looks like you're underdevelopped but you're, really, in a very good position.
Having The Great Wall, a Great Spy and the Pyramids sets you up very well.

If you're worried about getting to Writing only now...
... well, going Masonry --> The Wheel before Agriculture got you there.

With a more standard Agriculture --> Animal Husbandry --> The Wheel...
... you'd have about the same number of cities, larger sizes (6, 4, 4, 1)...
... Alphabet/Aesthetics...
... 0 infrastructure and 0 wonders.

Not sure how it plays out with Bronze Working.


Question @ Bombay :
How do you develop the city from size 1 ?
Answer :
Assign your first worker to the city, farm the corn, mine the gold,
Grow on warrior and switch to worker at size 2.
I suspect you did that, having 2 workers, 1 from Delhi and 1 from Bombay. That is the way to go.
Grow onto the valuable tiles, then stagnate the city to contribute with the Empire development.

Question @ Bombay :
Did you consider settling it between the corn and the pigs ?
I suspect that is the better location.
But of course, you didn't research Animal Husbandry until very late.
Bombay between the corn and the pigs makes for an excellent long term capital (or GP farm).
In a way, it saves you a settler, getting all the food with 1 city. It also saves you maintenance and hammers from infrastructure. So you can do more things with your hammers.
Maybe getting the gold is better but there is a strong case to be made for corn+pigs.

Another question @ city 3 :
Did you settle West to block off land ?
Settling the pigs first, rather than the cows, seems better to me. The city is set up faster, due to higher food output : it even has floodplains.
Western city doesn't have traderoutes but pigs city does.
You also knew of the copper tile, that requires a border pop. Connecting copper early is a huge deal : it allows to start producing Axemen to capture barbarian cities. Targetting barb cities is a major objective, once the earliest expansion is complete.

Those are rather minor points, I think.
All in all, the situation looks rather backwards but is very favourable. The backward aspect should be expected with a weak capital and 2 wonders.
5th city should definitely be the 3 food site north of Delhi.

 

[kevtrev]

Thanks for the responses.

Not sure if you'll have a chance with this game. You can easily get a lot of decent land, but catching up in Tech could be difficult. If you get a Great Spy, use him to explore the map before you steal your way to victory.
You need to develop your land.

Yeah I'm behind, but I'm not ready to give up just yet. I have a GSpy already and another GP on the way. If it's a GE I'll probably do as you say and bulb MC to do some tech trading...
Land development and a few granaries/libraries on the way... Not sure if I want an Academy.

At first glance, it looks like you're underdevelopped but you're, really, in a very good position.
Having The Great Wall, a Great Spy and the Pyramids sets you up very well.

If you're worried about getting to Writing only now...
... well, going Masonry --> The Wheel before Agriculture got you there.

With a more standard Agriculture --> Animal Husbandry --> The Wheel...
... you'd have about the same number of cities, larger sizes (6, 4, 4, 1)...
... Alphabet/Aesthetics...
... 0 infrastructure and 0 wonders.

Not too worried about it. Don't know what to tech next though. Thinking alpha for spies, CoL for caste, or something to trade.

Btw, if I'd opened agg-ah-the wheel I'd have been killed by the barbs or forced to settle the horses, losing the land I have settled (see op). That's why when I saw the Stone I beelined the GW. It saved me as the barbs swarmed out of the fog from the east.

Question @ Bombay :
How do you develop the city from size 1 ?
Answer :
Assign your first worker to the city, farm the corn, mine the gold,
Grow on warrior and switch to worker at size 2.
I suspect you did that, having 2 workers, 1 from Delhi and 1 from Bombay. That is the way to go.
Grow onto the valuable tiles, then stagnate the city to contribute with the Empire development.

Yeah, that's what I did. Delhi stagnated at size 2 which freed up the worker to do corn then gold.

Question @ Bombay :
Did you consider settling it between the corn and the pigs ?
I suspect that is the better location.
But of course, you didn't research Animal Husbandry until very late.
Bombay between the corn and the pigs makes for an excellent long term capital (or GP farm).
In a way, it saves you a settler, getting all the food with 1 city. It also saves you maintenance and hammers from infrastructure. So you can do more things with your hammers.
Maybe getting the gold is better but there is a strong case to be made for corn+pigs.

I did consider it, but rejected it for the reasons you suggest: no AH, badly needed commerce - and also to block Pacal.

Another question @ city 3 :
Did you settle West to block off land ?
Settling the pigs first, rather than the cows, seems better to me. The city is set up faster, due to higher food output : it even has floodplains.
Western city doesn't have traderoutes but pigs city does.
You also knew of the copper tile, that requires a border pop. Connecting copper early is a huge deal : it allows to start producing Axemen to capture barbarian cities. Targetting barb cities is a major objective, once the earliest expansion is complete.

3rd and 4th cities were settled on the same turn. The western city will block off my northern lands with a border pop. I beat Zara's settler by 1 turn. Pigs city is arguably in the wrong place. I thought long and hard about building it next to the copper, but that would have meant losing the pigs to Pacal. As it is I'm going to lose the copper to Joao, and with it the means of capturing the barb cities He's gonna take that land and get out of control...

Those are rather minor points, I think.
All in all, the situation looks rather backwards but is very favourable. The backward aspect should be expected with a weak capital and 2 wonders.
5th city should definitely be the 3 food site north of Delhi.

I agree about the 5th city, my 3rd worker is roading that way and will improve the cows before it's built.

Question: Do I build any cottages, and if so, where?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Great Engineer :
If you bulb Metal Casting with it (a valid play), note you can have 11 base hammers in city 5. A city that could build The Colossus.
The wonder has dubius value but it is cheap enough to warrant consideration.

What to tech next :
Definitely something to trade for Alphabet.
Zara already has Alpha and, by the time you'll be able to trade for it, some other AIs will have it, too.
Code of Laws looks good with the Pyramids but Caste System only has value once you've got the population to hire specialists. So it doesn't seem necessary to make it the earliest target.

Btw, if I'd opened agg-ah-the wheel I'd have been killed by the barbs or forced to settle the horses, losing the land I have settled (see op). That's why when I saw the Stone I beelined the GW. It saved me as the barbs swarmed out of the fog from the east.

This, I don't think is accurate.
Agg-ah-wheel is the most standard opener I can imagine. You shouldn't expect to die going that route.
Although, indeed, the risk exists and is much greater than by gunning for the Great Wall. Barbs are the n°1 cause for defeat on deity...
But AI units roam and kill barbs. If you can get 4 warriors, you should be safe to settle your 3rd city and the next ones. This is Pangaea, the most forgiving map when it comes to barbs.
If you think you'd die without the Great Wall, then maybe you should look to improve at surviving early (not necessarily an easy thing, maybe the most demanding aspect to "adjust" to deity).
Fighting with warriors allows you to choose from more options early. Specifically : I don't think settling the horses is called for.

Question: Do I build any cottages, and if so, where?

I'm not an expert on this (Pyramids play).
I'd suspect that yes : you should build cottages where possible. The reason is that once your maintenance explodes (1st war), then you'll need the commerce to sustain your Empire. The earlier your first war, the more you should pay attention to this.

With Representation, you'll easily have 8 happies.
Weight your food output versus your happy cap.

As it is, Pataliputra seems the best fitted to be a dedicated commerce city.

Somehow, it depends on the civics you choose to adopt and on the techs you're targetting.
e.g. : if you're staying in Slavery, then you won't run more than 2-3 specialists per city. Then a city doesn't need 10 food surplus and some tiles are easier to cottage.
if you're switching into Caste System, then the 10 food surplus makes a lot more sense.
e.g. : if you're looking to bulb to Liberalism, then the 10 food surplus also makes sense, because it'll mean faster GPs.
if you're looking to war with Macemen or stuff (breaking Pacal relatively early could be an idea...), then you're probably more looking to maximize your commerce and run specialists only at happy cap. In this case, a 6-8 food surplus is very fine.

Remember you'll settle at least 3 more cities peacefully, as that may affect your timings, starting with city growth.

All in all, I think some tiles between Bombay and Vijay can be cottaged.
You have a tremendous GP farm at the fish/crabs/cow location.
Delhi is a production city.
Pataliputra is a harder question to answer.

Remember, too, that cottages aren't the only source of commerce.
The coastline can help, here, as cities grow. So will foreign traderoutes.





Also, I forgot about this :

The western city will block off my northern lands with a border pop. I beat Zara's settler by 1 turn. Pigs city is arguably in the wrong place. I thought long and hard about building it next to the copper, but that would have meant losing the pigs to Pacal. As it is I'm going to lose the copper to Joao, and with it the means of capturing the barb cities He's gonna take that land and get out of control...

It looks safe to me. Joao's city is 4 tiles south of the copper. No danger, there.
Although you should make it an objective to pop borders in Pataliputra and pump 4-7 axemen.
Maybe your worker should chop the forest 1N to speed up the Monument.


As Delhi is reaching size 3 and may want to take back the floodplains farm from Bombay,
You may want to whip Bombay... I know you're whipping a Granary, there,
But seeing how you're a little late on expansion/growth, maybe a Worker/Settler should have higher priority.
I would find the settler for city 5 very tempting (whipping at earliest, not maximising overflow). You have Fishing already and can have a pasture done by the time the settler is in place...
Generally, the Granary is at its strongest where food is abundant, not necessarily in the city working a gold mine. Things would be a little different if you could share the gold with Vijay.

 

[kevtrev]

BiC, thank you for your very considered response. I don't have the chance to play or update the thread atm, but I will in a day or two. I'll be taking all your comments into consideration. I'm also interested by your Ag-AH-Wheel opening and am thinking of giving it a go to 1000 BC to see how it compares

 

[BornInCantaloup]

BiC, thank you for your very considered response. I don't have the chance to play or update the thread atm, but I will in a day or two. I'll be taking all your comments into consideration. I'm also interested by your Ag-AH-Wheel opening and am thinking of giving it a go to 1000 BC to see how it compares

No hurry, no worries.
I'm interested to see how the Ag-AH-Wheel route goes, too, especially settling the corn+pigs city AND trying to get the Pyramids at the same time (requires Bronze, thus delaying Writing and possibly Pottery).
I think I'll have a more careful go at this sometime (I did play the opener twice yesterday but lightning fast).


The Great Wall, I don't think is very necessary unless you want to make use of the Spy points.
(The spy points, on a PHI leader, are gg by themselves, by the way... so it's hardly an awful play... it's just that it sets you up for a longer game.)

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

I haven't looked at KevTrev's spoiler or 1000BC save, but I have read the discussion which gives me a bit of map knowledge before giving it a go.

Like KT, I'm pretty nervous about getting barbed if we don't beeline the GW. Warriors are all very well; but when the T40ish onslaught arrives, barbs in sufficient numbers will just march past fortified forest hill warriors and head straight for your cities. Warriors can't stop archer pillaging, which is very crippling; and if I run bad, I lose a city and it's curtains.

Another medium/long term approach occurs to me: Gandhi is PHI and doesn't start with fishing. I could try the GS Engineering bulb route and try and treb my way through an AI or two. If I go for the Mids then I get GE pollution in my capital, although it's not a disaster if I get one as they bulb useful techs on that path - just a little less efficiently. IIRC, you've got to slow-tech a few things to open up the right GS bulb path, and that's going to be tough without Rep.

I know there's a potential corn and pig city close by I could just take a GE from my cap to bulb MC to set me on my way and use as trade bait and then try and get 2 scientists from my second city. Hmmm.

I'll give it a go, but I'll probably just get barbed as usual

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Chase 2 Rabbits :
You should be worried about early survival when you play deity, at least I am.

Rule 1 : if you strain your economy too much for wonders or expansion, then you'll die. Trying to maximize the science/settler/worker/wonder output just leaves one unprepared versus the barbs assault (t35 is the date).
So some compromise has to be made, for safety.

Rule 2 : keep your units mobile.
Of course the defensive terrain is best to move into.
You can also move behind the AIs' units, that gives you an amount of safety.
Moving units around scouts for city locations and gives you intell as for where the barb units are and where they're going to.
This is very important, since it lets you anticipate.

Rule 3 : concentrate your military where it's needed.
On edges of the Empire, where there aren't fogbusters, a unit should be garrisoned.
Fogbusting a forested hill gives you a whole lot of safety, coming from 1 direction.
If you're just settling, you may need 2 warriors to protect the city site. Assess in the following turns if both are needed to protect the location.
When a threat is moving in, task the nearest warriors to help with defence.


@Units moving past your fortified defenders :
This will only happen very near of your borders, or inside your borders when your cities are too heavily garrisoned.
If your units are far enough or your cities are garrisoned lightly enough, then the barbs will take their chances and attack.
Many times, the good choice is to move a warrior out of the city and onto a forest, to get some extra defence, and attract the barb attack.
Sometimes, however, indeed, a fogbuster is fortified a little off the barb invasion route and they will bypass it. Then it's time to produce additional units and, maybe, move the fogbuster.

I still die routinely to barbs, mind you. And I still go into many deity maps with this motto in mind : "Survive !"
Don't think there's any magical way to deal with barbs (except for building the Great Wall or 3 axemen --- but those have a tremendous cost in workers/settlers --- so rule 1 still holds).
However, working on the first 60 turns does allow one to improve.
"Ok, I died, there. Where did I go wrong ? When did I not favour safety enough ?"
Those are questions that help improve.
You can reload, adjust, and remember for the next time.

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Hi BiC, cheers for the Deity barb tips. Rule 2 is interesting, that's something I don't usually do. After some brief exploration, I tend to keep my warriors static for the fortify bonus.

I actually did quite well in my first attempt at this map...barb wise anyway. I didn't lose any potential city sites and I didn't get pillaged (although I did have my stone hook up delayed by a few turns).

Spoiler :

Overall though, I think I've fluffed it (1AD save attached). I lost the gold city to Pacal getting the Mids out. I executed the plan fine, but too slowly. I wasn't even the first to engineering. I've got 6 cities at 1AD, but two are coastal backfillers to the north of the cap which are too raw to contribute to the unit whip-a-thon (they weren't much use earlier due to avoiding fishing). I'll give it a go, but I'm not too hopeful.

 

[JSS]

975BC:

Spoiler :

I played quickly up to 975BC (was intending to post a 1000BC update, but accidentally hit another end turn).

Settler moved 1E onto the plains hill while warrior headed southeast.

Initial worker improvements:
- Farm the FP 2S of the capital
- Mine the riverside GL hill
- Pasture the sheep. This was delayed by one turn because the worker finished the mine.

Delhi built warriors until it reached size 4, then started the 1st settler. I got 5 warriors to fogbust, no fights were lost.

2nd city was founded 1E of the gold. It grew to size 2 and has built workers since then. 3rd settler was built in Delhi, and it went to settle 1NE of the pigs.

Tech path: Agriculture -> AH -> TW -> Pottery -> Writing

Empire overview:

Spoiler :

Joao is going to settle the cow spot in the peninsula. Another settler is going to probably claim the oasis/corn site. I'm not sure if I should swoop that site from him with my next settler or start with my future GP farm (cow/fish/crab northeast of Delhi). There's probably not enough time to have it contribute as much as I'd like to if it got delayed too much anymore. Also, Delhi can quit building settlers and start growing on cottages if I let Joao take the corn too.
Edit: I realised that I don't need a Library in the Cow/Crab/Fish city. I can run scientists when I'm in caste. So I went ahead and beat Joao to the site by 1 turn, and built another Settler in Delhi iirc. for the GP farm.

Tech situation:

Spoiler :

Nothing interesting. I'm going to trade Aesthetics for Alpha, then Alpha for other stuff I need, then get everyone I can to pleased, head for Currency -> CoL -> bulb Philo ->>> Lib.

Capital... I'll have to start chopping the riverside forests and start growing on the cottages. Not too much food, therefore I'll not whip this city much if at all.

Spoiler :

Slowbuilding a Library here. Will get BW soon when I finish Aesthetics and trade it for Alpha. I'll grow to size 6, 3-pop whip a Settler into Library -> Granary and start working 2 scientists when I've grown back to work the cottages. Although I'm not in a hurry to get a GS for Philo, I'll start working scientists asap., because this is the city that is going to produce a GS for an academy for capital too.

Spoiler :

Bombay (the gold/corn city):

Spoiler :

Pataliputra. +7F surplus at size 4, working 3 cottages. Now that I think about it, this city could potentially crank out the 2nd GS I need for an academy, then switch over to doing other things.

Spoiler :

The horse city that I settled right after Zara had captured a barbarian city next to it. Will finish the worker, then build a WB-> Granary

Spoiler :

Re. why I didn't build either of the stone wonders:

Factors against the Great Wall:
- On a Pangaea map the risk of dying to barbs is minimal compared to say an Inland Sea or a Hemispheres map where there's more land and fewer AI Archers roaming the lands near you.
- The coast to the north was visible after Delhi border pops iirc. The directions to be worried about were limited to east, south, (south)west.
- Delhi is hammer-rich and warriors are cheap and about 5 could be built while waiting to hit size 4.
- Masonry is an expensive tech in the beginning, and while the Stone is a great tile to work, it's not that great to warrant a detour to a tech that is not of the highest priority to me otherwise. More imporant is getting to Alpha -> Currency asap., and aboard the tech train.

Factors against the Pyramids:
- There's a lot of land to be grabbed. 500 stone-powered hammers is still 250 hammers = 2 Settlers + 50/60 of a worker. On Pangaea there's no time to get the mids without losing good city spots that otherwise would have been settled by you.
- Delhi is food-poor. Granted there's a great food-rich site nearby, but otherwise the land doesn't seem too convincing in terms of running specialists.
- The Masonry argument applies here as well.

 

[JSS]

250BC:

Spoiler :

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I nabbed the Corn/Oasis city spot from Joao and only then settled my future GP farm on Turn 86. It still has enough time to grow until I switch to Caste/Pacifism again (I ran Caste for a few turns to get a GS from the pig city earlier for Delhi).

Civil Service will be in shortly. However, I'll have to wait 2 turns before I can switch into Bureaucracy. This is because I switched back to Slavery/Caste a few turns ago. I think the benefits of OR and Slavery vs losing 2 turns of Bureaucracy are positive. The cottages in the capital are not very developed yet, and +25 hammer boost in other cities outweigh the +50 the capital, working only a hill and a quarry, would get.

I'm in buddhism with my neighbors, Joao and Pacal. Pacal is at friendly, Joao at pleased. Therefore neither can plot against me.

My biggest concern is Zara, because he's in a different religion. I gave into his demand to switch religions once, and voted for him in the AP vote to have as good a relationship with him as possible. Luckily Pacal is his worst enemy, though. There's some risk of him declaring on me because of our shared borders and him being cautious with me, but there's not much more that I can do (other than gift him Philo and CS and make him attack someone). Just hope that the dice doesn't roll against me.

Empire overview:

Spoiler :

I'll have to soon decide whether to lib MT or Steel. If I went for MT, I could start creating havoc by bribing AIs to war with Philo + other techs sooner. Also, Cuirassiers could potentially result in an earlier date of victory.

Cannons would be a slower, but once I get them, a safer approach. For this I'll need more scientists. 2 for Edu + 1 for Lib + 1 for RP + 2 for Chemistry = 6. I've already spawned 2, therefore the last one would require 800GPP.

In my GP farm working a Cow, Crabs, Fish, at +11 food surplus at size 8, I can generate (running caste + Pacifism) (5 * 3GPP/t) * 3 = 45GPP/t with +1F. This is clearly not enough to warrant this one city take all responsibility for GPP generation. I need a second city to generate another scientist or 2, probably the pig city can do this.

I'm outputting a pretty good amount of research, though, so I'll not be needing 6 more scientists to reach Steel.

A lot of this is just thinking aloud. I'll probably notice mistakes here and there once I've posted this. Feel free to correct me, though, and enlighten me about the extent of the terribleness of my plans and choices.

In case someone is going to open the save, the lighthouse in the GP farm was just 1-pop whipped. Forgot I was running OR.

 

[Seraiel]

@ JSS:

I liked what I read, and the screenshots also look good .

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

Hi BiC, cheers for the Deity barb tips. Rule 2 is interesting, that's something I don't usually do. After some brief exploration, I tend to keep my warriors static for the fortify bonus.

I actually did quite well in my first attempt at this map...barb wise anyway. I didn't lose any potential city sites and I didn't get pillaged (although I did have my stone hook up delayed by a few turns).

Spoiler :

Overall though, I think I've fluffed it (1AD save attached). I lost the gold city to Pacal getting the Mids out. I executed the plan fine, but too slowly. I wasn't even the first to engineering. I've got 6 cities at 1AD, but two are coastal backfillers to the north of the cap which are too raw to contribute to the unit whip-a-thon (they weren't much use earlier due to avoiding fishing). I'll give it a go, but I'm not too hopeful.

Yep, another deity fail. At least I didn't get barbed. Too land poor after focusing on the Mids and avoiding fishing. Pacal was way too strong by the time I'd whipped out a respectable army from my 4 mature cities (I'd already used a lot of chops). Didn't even make the most of the Mids as I didn't have CoL in time to run caste...

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

@ JSS:

I liked what I read, and the screenshots also look good .

Yeah, a much better effort than mine. Securing good land >> the Mids on this map. Interesting that you've ignored BW for so long.

I still think you'll have played very well to win Lib from here against this group of opponents, though.

 

[JSS]

580AD:

Spoiler :

For some reason the AIs were slow to go the Literature -> Music line. I managed to trade for Marble from Zara, and build the Great Library. I was 1st to Music too.

The tech I managed to get from Liberalism is... *drumroll*:

Spoiler :

...but on the same turn:

Spoiler :

This was not the first time he tried this. The first one was even closer. I've been trying to spread Judaism into my cities with a moderate success. Only a couple of failures. I'll not give him another chance.

This is how the tech situation looks like:

Spoiler :

JC is warring on Pacal and is getting nowhere. Zara is annoyed with me, and has Saladin vassaled. I could potentially swith into Judaism to get him on my side, but that would drop Pacal and Joao down from Friendly.

Re. civics:

I'm planning to switch into Nationhood and Theocracy. I don't think I'll switch into Slavery. Drafting will do its job causing unhappiness, and I've been building workshops where I can. Keeping a healthy economy alive will allow me to get into later era techs if they are needed. I'll maybe switch into Slavery for a few turns after my 1st war to whip infrastructure in my new cities, though. Assuming I run my tech slider at 0%, Nationhood will cost me 0.5 * 64 - (34 - 22) = 20, plus 0.5 * whatever hammers the capital is outputting. I think it's worth it to draft a few muskets, the +2 happiness from barracks will be needed in the war as well.

 

[kevtrev]

Well I played on a bit but it's looking grim. Poor decisions at the beginning have cost me. My second GP is another spy, so no MC bulb, and CoL is still so far away that by the time I get it everyone else will have it already

Anyway, the point of the thread is to learn and improve, so all is not lost. I've learnt that I overvalue wonders and settling land is stronger, and that I shouldn't be too scared off defending against the barbs with warriors... although sure, it can go wrong.

@JSS

Thanks for showing me how to do it! Your quick expansion and early hop onto the "tech train" was so much better than my messing around with wonders. Please keep posting so we can see how your game develops.

@BiC

Thanks for the advice regarding barb defense. Gonna try and put it into practice.

@C2R

Nice to see you match my Great Wall fixation with your engineering bulb When will we learn?

 

[Pangaea]

Maybe your game got off to a too bad start to be salvaged, but with a Great Spy you can infiltrate an AI and get a truckload of espionage points on him/her, and use that to steal techs. I've practically never stolen a tech myself, but I do hear it can be a very viable approach.

 

[JSS]

@kevtrev:
If you find yourself in a place that is impossible to salvage, a good way to learn and reflect on your decisions is to try again with a different approach. Not to be a voice of discouragement, though. Stealing techs from your neighbors could still get you back in the game.

I'll try to finish this game during the weekend. Will probably post an update after my 1st war, and depending on how smoothly the rest of the game sails, an intermediary report before victory (or defeat).

@Chase_2_Rabbits:
Since the capital is very food-poor, I didn't see the benefits of early BW enough to prioritize it over techs that I thought had greater impact. The 2nd city would not have been very quick to whip either because of the gold mine that had to be worked.

@ Seraiel:
Thanks, It's always nice to receive compliments from players way better than myself.