Deity Isolation Workshop (Stan/Norm/Fractal/NH/NE)

[krikav]

Thanks alot @Pedro78 !
I will go through the saves, looking at what you have written.

*edit*
Oh, the comments around scouting, I had already seen Rustens screenshots (can't remember when) and more or less tried to mimic most of that play, so I already knew what was on the island by that point.
*/edit*

 

[Pangaea]

This thread appears to be relevant, and I just noticed something odd that probably doesn't deserve a thread of its own.

In an isolation game I looked over some cities that were recently captured, and noticed something odd. According to the financial advisor we're paying 41 in colony maintenance. I've gone through the cities on the new continent, only a few of which have come out of resistance. Taking the few courthouses into account, they all add up to 41 per turn. But only a few are out of resistance, so the cost should be 0 for the others. Yet we are paying the full amount, at least according to the financial advisor, which is probably correct.

What is up with that? Doesn't seem right that we need to pay maintenance costs for cities still in resistance, which we therefore get zero work or income from. Nor do we get income from e.g. Shrines in cities still in resistance (1 is online, but there is another)

 

[krikav]

In case you drop by again @Pedro78 (we miss you!)
I (and others) took a stab at your Kublai map.
It was very nice!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-fun-game-of-kublai.666850/

 

[Pedro78]

In case you drop by again @Pedro78 (we miss you!)
I (and others) took a stab at your Kublai map.
It was very nice!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-fun-game-of-kublai.666850/

Hi Krikav, it's been a while! I just took a quick look at your Kublai write-up, pretty nasty game... I don't remember playing this map, but that's probably because I stopped playing after 70 turns as usual. I sort of ditched Civ4 a year ago and started playing chess, which impressively turned out to be even more unhealthy.
Anyway, I reinstalled Civ today, half out of nostalgy, half wondering how much worse I've gotten at it. So if you've got another map like this one (iso or not) I'd be glad to jump in!

 

[sampsa]

chess, which impressively turned out to be even more unhealthy.

Welcome back to the 2nd best game there is.

 

[crashmon]

Welcome back to the 2nd best game there is.

Backgammon ? Love that game

 

[sampsa]

Backgammon ? Love that game

Well, you also have cats...

 

[Major Tom]

Welcome back to the 2nd best game there is.

@Pedro78 and @sampsa Highly recommend lichess. I sometimes play some 10+5 Swiss tournaments. Drop me a line there: MajorTom21. Following the candidates, it should be Caruana.

 

[krikav]

@Pedro78
Yeah, I remember being on a treadmill of frustrating blitzchess games whenever I try to pick that game up. Throwing pieces away, and just being stressed and annoyed. Playing at a slower rate doesn't help either.

I have the last NC game with ragnar half-started and havn't gotten opportunity to jump into the Hatty game yet so I don't know of many recent nice maps.
This one I remember that I enjoyed https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-gilgamesh-fun-times.668014/
You catched me at a bad time, entering low season regarding to gaming for me.

Oh, another thing, can you add me to your V.I.P list, I usually go around sifting through threads started by various people to find nice maps, but whenever I try to check threads started by you I run into "This member limits who may view their full profile.".

 

[Qactus]

...So if you've got another map like this one (iso or not) I'd be glad to jump in!

Here's a map I found very hard on Immortal. So if you adjust it to be Deity, I guess it should be quite a challenge.
Settings are standard Fractal NHNE. Although alone on a landmass, it is not strict isolation (contact via workboats/galleys possible).

Spoiler Start :

Imm save attached

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Qactus

I think, it is a boring map, but it is not isolation and I do not understand why it is difficult.

Spoiler :

Looks like a big and rich landmass. If this game were played on deity instead, a detour to archery would not have been difficult with fur resources. For my game, the next step would be fishing next to meet other AIs, alphabet to escape the production trap, monarchy to escape the happiness trap.

 

[Qactus]

@sylvanllewelyn
Thanks for the feedback
Why I think it was hard despite the generous start:

Spoiler :

On the turn of your screenshot I was in a similar position and things were looking good:

Spoiler :

But expansion to the juicy spots west all but killed my economy.
In the end I did not see a clear path to victory via military action. Meanwhile Korean/Persian continent blazed away in tech (with pre 1000AD Lib) as I have rarely seen on Immortal. So I stayed on my island and went Culture Victory.

Production trap and teching Alpha for research sounds like a good hint, thx.

 

[sampsa]

Certainly not a challenge for Pedro, but I kinda like the map so far.

Spoiler :

Very straight-forward IMO, need to go on the ph, agri-AH. The only real choice I see is whether to get the seafoods to 1st ring or not. Need to build some roads, but there is time for it before AH.

I also would like to point out that in my view you shouldn't be greedy with scouting. It's clear we can found a nice core on this area, so what's behind the western peaks for example is not that relevant for now. Just fortify early to fogbust and barbs give you little issues, especially on non-deity.

I went for the ph, but now I feel 1E was a lot better, mainly because then you can fit in a 4th city nicely to this area sharing corn, 3*beavers, river cottages. Of course you can go 3S of cap now and probably should, but it's not sharing food. Going archery because is great soon and so much easier to push the scouting with archers.

Perhaps this is only the beginning of the hard part, but with such a powerful core even if the rest of the island is rather barren, I don't think the obstacles prove too hard.

 

[shakabrade]

So if you adjust it to be Deity, I guess it should be quite a challenge.

What makes Deity hard is the 2nd settler AIs start with. Some extra bonuses are not really worth mentioning without extra units. I have created a Deity difficulty or Imm+ like someone has called it when without Deity starting units.

 

[krikav]

Those maps where you can get pre-optics contact with some AI(s), but they are not on your landmass tend to be very nice. You can get 2c traderoutes right away. Currency is often nice on such maps too.
All while not having to worry so much about getting attacked.

 

[Pedro78]

This map definitely looks interesting

Spoiler :

The land is quite good, so the tricky part is to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible. This is the type of start where tech/build orders and micro-improvements make a huge difference. Later the main difficulty will probably be to figure out how and when to expand. Unless there are some high-commerce spots, any long-distance expansion has to be justified by a combination of traderoutes, hammers-to-gold converters (currency/failgold/alpha) or CS+high food, otherwise maintenance costs just kill the deal.

@sampsa I like the way you've played this, looks very principled. A possible improvement would've been to build beavertown 2W of its current location and delaying fishing. (go something like worker-settler-worker with Ag-AH-hunt-mining-BW-fishing-pottery [with Archery either before or after fishing], intending to work the river furs as soon as possible. Then settle cities #3 and #4 with first-ring seafood and chop out the workboats). Maybe growing cap to size 3 before the first settler was also better (haven't calculated it, might be wrong on this one).

I also would like to point out that in my view you shouldn't be greedy with scouting

Funnily enough that's the first thing that struck me when looking at the previous two posts. Every warrior move after T5 comes at a risk, especially on flatland desert.

 

[sampsa]

@Qactus

Spoiler :

Production trap and teching Alpha for research sounds like a good hint, thx.

I somewhat disagree with alpha, if the point is to build , just because there are more effective ways of gaining - *drumroll* cottages. Production trap comes from doing stuff that emphasizes over cottages. Looking at your screenshot, you have a too high focus on granaries (=emphasizing ! as without a high -cap granaries are only good when whipping) and too few workers for cottages. I slow built every worker I think and cottaged a lot of green asap.

I also would not tech maths, just because it's relatively easy to gain via trade and you don't do much with it (+10 per chop is nice only when you need ). Techs like monarchy, CoL, philo on the other hand drastically improve the way your empire functions and thus should be the bread and butter of your forcedly peaceful strategy. Monarchy is usually attainable via trade (AI will trade it even when they have a perceived monopoly over it) so after sailing and writing I went medi-ph and now deciding between self teching alpha, self teching monarchy or teching something I can use as a trade bait, which very likely would be CoL. Note also how SPI has great synergy with the religious branch.

All this applies mostly to the kind of scenario we have at hand: AI's are very far so an early war is not an option, but you do have them as trade partners (and boosting trade routes) so you don't have a need to rush towards astro-line. Under such circumstances, especially with SPI, focusing on winning liberalism feels like the most logical play to me.

 

[sampsa]

T94

Spoiler :

Pretty sloppy play overall (worker management, city spots) so not exemplary, but I think decent anyway. Met 4 AI, initially I thought there are two only. Banked some gold, and as Asoka had CoL and nobody had alpha I went that way, though Rams got it this turn too. I think here deity vs immortal is quite different - I don't think you should self research alpha on deity unless going for it very early. Got one -res via trade and learned that Ragnar only trades -res at friendly, what a prick!

Should get monarchy from Asoka via trade next turn so finally granaries become good. I just grew the cap into unhappiness madrassa-granary working at least some cottages. I guess the grand strategy is still the same - win lib. Probably just cuirs and domination, though they are on a different landmass so it's a bit uncomfortable.

 

[krikav]

Some recent maps have made me pick up a renewed interest in isolation maps, but with the added complexity of more land available to the AIs.
That is, the standard fractal maps, but with low sea level.

There is one earlier in this thread: Post 618 which features this element.
(I lost that map here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a-fun-game-of-kublai.666850/ )

I also generated a soul crushing map on the same theme, but probably abit harder still.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/prepare-to-cringe-bad-maps-deity.647427/page-8#post-16295757

I will try to generate a few low sea level maps with more favourable starts and/or suitable leaders to handle the task.
Others interested in the same topic? Help brainstorm and/or generate maps!

 

[krikav]

Some of my toughts on the subject:

The problem with more land available for the AI is that the probability for runaways are much higher, so we work on a even tighter time schedule to catch them all.

It's doubtful if there is time to be setback by barbarians, so maybe some early help with barbs is needed? Creative for earlier fogbusting on a tight budget could be handy? Agg always helps since you can get cover warriors out.
The game is also bound to be long. So things that helps out in the lategame might really come in handy.
I think ORG is a very good trait since it helps abit with economy in the middle and lategame. Lighthouses are usually plenty in isolation plays. And the bonus to factories helps alot with industrializing.

Getting some religion might be a very nice option to reduce the odds of early cultural victories from some religion hoarder. Phi could help both by making CoL more appealing (phi caste specialists are nice) but also to afford a philo-bulb to deny one religion.