Deity please! #2

[Dhoomstriker]

@Mylene

Spoiler :

Skipping Alphabet for now is probably a good idea

@Gkey, not much interest in Alphabet (everyone has it now besides Monty who most likely won't trade me good stuff yet anyway, and the chance didn't really present itself). Only place i could have built research was Rome, but iam doing a chariot which is also fine for a mobile happy cap unit and the city is whipped down.

Alphabet could allow you to get Spies... but I don't see them being all that useful, since the AIs will just run a 10% or 20% Espionage Slider and will pulverize your Espionage output...

As you say, building Research isn't going to be a critical build item either, so skipping Alphabet can certainly be done.

I think, though, that you'll eventually need Alphabet if you want to Lightbulb Philosophy, since Alphabet (if I recall correctly) comes before Philosophy in BtS' Great Scientist Lightbulbing order.

As for Monte... BUG + BULL shows that there are a ton of AIs that hate Monte due to randomly-generated numbers at the start of the game... so, chances are that he's a lot of people's Worst Enemy... and thus would be a terrible AI to trade techs with.

At least in my game, 4 out of the 5 AIs that are not Monte have Monte as their Worst Enemy, while Zara doesn't even have a Worst Enemy. Talk about easy Diplomacy!


Settle by the Fish

Question, take a look at the Iron/Incense spot please, i whipped a Settler when i saw this is the only place with Iron, now i need to decide where to settle

Take the Fish--that's what I did. Since there are 2 Incense Resources next to each other, an AI will settle there and will claim both of them... watch the F4 -> RESOURCES screen every turn and be the first one to trade for Incense. BAM! You'll have Incense without needing the junky City.

As for the Gold, it is only a Desert Hills Gold... meaning 1 less Hammer and 1 less Commerce than a Plains Hills Gold... and it's not even on a River... to me, the Fish site is far better, since a Lighthouse can always make it a decent City... I think that I'll even put Moai Statues here eventually, making it far better than a Size 1 City that works only a Desert Hills Gold square.


Churchill

P.S. Churchi is gearing up, but he is pleased. He forced me into converting to Buddhism, which is fine everyone besides Gandhi and Lincoln uses it.

If he was Pleased with you at the time of starting his war plans (having his Hands Full), then you are not the target, since he won't declare if he is Pleased with an AI. Likely, he is going to go and pick on Monte.

My game has been quiet on the war-front, with the only action being between Monte and me. If I can ever get enough of a tech lead, I might bribe in a war ally, but that war ally will likely just Vassalize Monte, so I'm not sure that it'll be a good choice. Perhaps if that AI doesn't have Feudalism, but I'm seeing Longbowmen popping up everywhere, so likely everyone will have Feudalism by the time that I can get any sort of a tech that they'll take as a bribe.

 

[Mylene]

Hiya @Dhoom

I just begged 10 gold out of him for peace as he got currency, now iam 100% safe, cannot remember if i was already pleased when he went wheoooo.

Iam currently finishing the Pantheon in Rome, and my GP farm will try to chop out TGL.
Gandhi got Literature 2 turns ago, so i do not have as much time as i wanted (and i won't try music, teching a tad into calendar instead so i can trade that /w Aestetics), but he doesn't have marble - it could work.

If everyone leaves me alone for a few more turns i'll be ready to protect myself, that'd be nice.
I managed to turn the Great Prophet from the Oracle into a Scientist, used it for an Academy in the city with 2 gems, the thought behind that was to take over Zara in culture cuz the Bugger blocks my nice Rice And it is my best science city for the future anyway.

I picked the spot in the desert for the ressource city, don't feel like wasting time on growing that
Not comfortable with settling 2 away from Iron there, if someone decides to attack i need Praets.

 

[awilder]

So I took a break from my Frederick game (which is looking tough) for this one. And man this game is way more fun

to 375 AD, whole continent revealed.

Spoiler :

I've heard ppl talk about oracle>MC>run engineer>mids, so I tried it. And...

Put them there because of culture pressure. Talk about a monument on steroids.

I also build the colossus since I had that forge. That was probably a mistake, since I was then only able to get the bare minimum 6 cities, and one of them is gonna struggle getting up a uni. I guess I'm gonna try to get oxford up before war so it's looking like cavs.

I kept monte off my back by bribing him to war churchill, then bribed zara on monte, and after all those wars ended I bribed monte to attack darius. I also warded off a lincoln attack by gifting him CoL and CS and then begging gold off him (he went out of WHEOOHRN during the peace treaty, phew).

Stopped at lib:

Here's empire

Here's cap

And tech situation

I could bribe another war or two right now. Zara would attack Ghandi iirc. I dunno tho cause I don't necessarily want everyone building a million units I need to slog through later.

I had a blast on this map so far. I got the lucky 45% engineer and just rolled on the wonders from there.

 

[Mylene]

425BC and iam building wonders

Spoiler :

Chopping out TGL in a size 3 city within ~6 turns is fun
Figured i might as well try MoM too as long as the political situation is stable, worst case is nice failure gold. This leader with marble is pretty powerful.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I generally hate to play as Rome (as well as Mongolia and a few other civs) but I guess I can't complain if it's Deity difficulty.
My attempt, to 975 B.C.

Spoiler :

First turns :
Moving the warrior SE revealed gems.
2 settling spots were interesting :
- 1NE provided Bananas + river connection.
- 1SE kept the clams.
I chose 1SE because the bananas weren't irrigated, thus wouldn't be a good tile for a long time. Pigs were revealed ! Cool.

I was reluctant at the thought of whipping so the tech path was Agri -> BW.

I started scouting east and spotted a very nice site near Zara with grassland cows + irrigated corn. Given the gems in Rome, I decided to afford the far away city. 2 workers, 1 axe and we went for it.
-> The Wheel -> Animal Husbandry -> Mysticism -> Pottery.

Then there was Stone + cows up north. Eeeek. So many sites !! I went full on settlers, and only built a marginal number of workers.
And gems a little closer...

At that point, there were many interesting locations, so I dotmapped :

Spoiler :

3rd city ready to be built.
Notice the barb city west of Rome. That was a lucky draw, since it "secures" the western border, preventing other AIs to settle the spot.
Polytheism is being researched. Yep. I was going for Priesthood. Only the Stonehenge had been built at that time and gems were powering research.

What I did not expect was to see a settling party from Zara the following turn advancing towards the jungle.
So Rome was whipped and I lost a number of commerce (emphazise food to regrow, at the expense of the gems).
That settler was sent on the tile between the rice and sugar that Zara would have settled otherwise :

Spoiler :

You can see Antium putting some hammers into the Great Wall on that screen. The plan was to switch to a settler at size 2. The marble site + the gems still needed to be secured. It turned out to be a worker first. I really couldn't afford a new settler so fast. What you can also see is that the commerce output is seriously decreasing...

I was lucky enough to steal a worker from the western barbarian city.
Then Zara sent another settler south : only possible site was the marble so I had to whip Rome to size 3 again !
That new city could at least work the gems itself. And allow us to crawl our way to Priesthood (Zara's settler is in Yeha) :

Spoiler :

1 chop later :

Spoiler :

Lucky shot, I guess. AIs being annoyed at Montezuma probably helped.

Lay of the land :

Spoiler :

Churchill is the tech leader, so I will trade him Metal Casting for Writing + Iron working + whatever.
Then I'll backfill Alphabet, Maths, etc.

Advisors :

Spoiler :

The Temple of Artemis isn't built, yet. I'll put hammers into it and maybe complete it.
I'd like the Hanging Gardens as well.
And the Parthenon. And the G. Lib. And... Oh ! I'd like a wonder spree
Not sure if I'll manage, though.

Barbarians... Barbarians were a non issue.
Early axes + warriors on jungle hills do alright.
EPs... are focused on Zara Yaqob. He's the obvious land target. Not sure if I'll go to war very early, though.
Finally, there are 2 barb cities that I'd like to capture (the western one, close to Rome and another one south-east of Antium. So Antium is getting started on the Barracks.

 

[Mylene]

Turn 120

Spoiler :

This one plays easily so far, 1 turn away from Education.

All things you usually want are in, GP farm pumping out the next GS after bulbing Philo/Edu.
Running Bureau/Paci/Caste on a MoM Golden Age.
Building my first workshops, stables and such before i now need to do Universitys.
Everyone pretty much likes me, Churchi vassalized Monty.

 

[lymond]

@Mylene

Spoiler :

Just a question about your original settling spot. Obviously it is still very much a fine city and you are quite awesome, but I wonder why you moved to settle on a tile that obviously has a strat resource. And rare riverside grassland copper to boot. That is such a wicked good tile to work. Were you disappointed when that popped up in your city? Anyway, good game though. I've been reading a lot of your write-ups. Although I'm sure there are others, you are the first lady deity ace I've seen in S&T - it's good to see .

On another note, I recommend grabbing an imageshack account for posting screenshots. Just copy the forum url from imageshack and use the insert image button to put in your spoiler tags. The thumbnail attachments are spoilery

 

[GKey]

Sup, Lymond. We had strong immortal players in Cookbook I hoped meeting here. Join us and have fun!

I am kind of stuck, making report, while thinking.

 

[lymond]

Oh...I'm trying it.

Spoiler :

I've tried a few turns of the start a couple of times. Oracle is really easy to get, but I've had bad luck with barb cities popping up and having the right balance to take those cities before the AIs and get out the other stuff I need. On Deity, I've come to the conclusion that you really have to eschew extended scouting to make sure barb cities don't pop up where you intend to settle your first cities. Barb cities are fine for the tertiary cities. Plus, I just need to get more units out faster. ToA is so tempting here.

My few deity wins have been under very favorable conditions. I'm still amazed at how easy some of these guys and gal make it seem.

I'd hate restarting as it seems so cheap afterwards, but heck this is for learning purposes and this is a pretty darn good start.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Lymond :

Spoiler :

Yes, it seems barb cities pop up VERY early so fogbusting for them is quite important.
That should be before planting the 3rd city, I guess. 3-4 fogbusters would do the job on this map.


@ restarting the game :
I don't see the problem but... to each his own playstyle.
Well, I'll be away from Civ for 10 days and I'm pretty sure that if I take this game to the ADs, it will be with a restart

 

[GKey]

Been owned last game, I'm trying to play carefully now. (Well, was not owned, just gave up, restarted and gave up again )

87 turns:

Spoiler :

So, yes I revealed that gem with warrior before settling. Choices are SIP or move NE. (no way I will settle on this unforested tile! )

Tough choice indeed. Decided to SIP.

Next was building order / tech path. Made some calculations. Obviously need: Agr, AH, BW, Myst. And we start with fishing!
So it was Agr first while make WB working plain hill or
WB working corn or ... , headbreaking.
Decided on unorthodox opening. Worker (15t) and BW (16t) first! Then worker chop WB while teching Agr. We are low on production tiles so skip AH, mine these pigs and run for Oracle!

Um yeah! Copper on grass!!! Couple of axes will not hurt. And I've found a job for axes pretty soon. When barbs start to settle on Deity?
In my game they decided to box me in on like turn 36:

Right after I settled marble/gem/pigs city. Scouting reveal gems nearby, while I was waiting for it to grow to size 2. More axes and:

Not bad city, I would settle it 1W, to get 2nd gem in bfc, but it saved me settler creation turns.

Got Woodsman III axe. Will not hurt.

Whip axes, overflow into Oracle. Oracle in 1, teching Writing (and praying )

It's 1440 BC, writing in 5, but religions went kind of late and AI just completed GW, so I must have these 5 turns!

Meanwhile:

This city I razed (no gold in BFC) and settled nearby.

So this is it?

Oracle - CoL!

Got Masonry and chopping Mids.

Traded for Alpha, Math, IW and Monarchy. Also got AH+Sailing from most backward Monty. Hope it was not mistake, WFYBTA on Deity comes too soon. Teching Aesthetics, which could be mistake too. May be I need beeline Construction instead and make use of our UU while I can.

Monty WHEOOHRN! Good thing I have axes and:

Gold and much needed worker! Razed it to not go broke. I've already settled city by 2nd gem+sugar and maintenance kicks in.

Monty attacked Zara and I just have my axes near excellent city, asking to be mine! It's on hill but has only 2 archers in it. 6 axes might be enough.

And it was enough indeed.

2 first axes died as expected.

On previous map getting Mids did not help much. I could use these +3 happy from Rep, but had no enough food rich cities to run enough specs. Here I have some food, but still not sure if it worth invested hammers. Hope it will pay off, we are Industrious after all, but may be I'd rather spend hammers on workers. I've captured 3 workers from Zara (woodsman III axe ) but need more with all this jungle around.

Sign peace giving Zara Monarchy. His chariots vs my axes and thx to wonder whoring I don't have single hammer for spear.

Lincoln and Darius got Currency already. Hope I can broker for it soon. Also I have only self founded Confu in some of my cities, but no religion from neighbors.

700 BC - Mids are in. Many decisions to make. Should I revolt Rep+CS or just Rep and stay in slavery. Should I stop teching Aest and go for catapult rush on Zara while Monty keeps him busy on other side of his land. And we got hindu in our territory this turn, should I switch or stay no state religion.

Empire so far:

Tech situation:

I can trade for calendar this turn.

Ideas/suggestions/criticism are welcome as always.

 

[GKey]

@Lymond, @BIC

Spoiler :

With copper in BFC having barbs settling nearby is not a bad thing. It is a good thing actually, at least in my game. I prefer making axes instead of settlers even with imperialistic leader.

It's not much different from some of ours IC games. Dhoom happily stealing workers from Monty and seems to be doing fine.

 

[Mylene]

@Lymond

Spoiler :

Ty for the compliment We are a bunch of girls in my guild who played Everquest together for a long time now, i guess the gamer genes come from there

The city location, when my warrior saw gems this made it a must to get them into the BFC.
Southeast had a forest, no fresh water and 1 turn longer for the worker to reach the corn.
Would have cost me 2 turns, which i consider a lot on Deity. Also no banana.

Northeast looses the clam, which imo is a good field even without a lighthouse. I didn't know about the pigs yet, but it would have been a bad spot.

Would i have moved 2E if i look at the location now? Actually no i wouldn't, the loss of 2 turns is too heavy on Deity for me. Everything on jungle like the sugar is also bad, and while river copper is an awesome tile, it also was very important that i was able to build an Axe without connecting it, that again saved me some turns.

It is all about speed in the early rounds, knowing everything now i still wouldn't move away

About the thumbnails, hmm i didn't think about that, do you see more than small pics that need to be clicked on to spoiler?

About the game, not much happened besides getting to Cavs and fighting Zara, sadly the diplo situation made this one a snoozer cuz noone did DoW on anyone, and they all trade with each other with so many "good guys" on the field + Monty vassaled. I should have went to war with macemen

 

[Mylene]

Okay i made an imageshack account, lets see if this works
Turn 161

Spoiler :

Declared on Zara, who got Rifles 1 turn later. But i managed to take the city close to Cumae before that (where he used a culture bomb), with just longbow defenders inside.
Freedom to the Rice!

Also razed 2 useless cities close to my borders quickly, ending the turn and expecting a SoD coming towards me. But there was none

So i re-gathered the fearless Riders, ready to pay the price vs. Rifles.
And they did, but i have good production, and a big city fell easily.
After a turn of healing up and waiting for reinforcements, Aksum was the goal.
5 Rifle defenders, i lost some more Cavs (of course), but the city was worth it

It was time to make peace, and wait for Steel (3 turns) for cannons to clean up the rest.
I switch all my production to Trebs now, a fine use for the remaining treasury to upgrade them.

Zara is pleased again and opened borders, by the way
The techs:

 

[Mylene]

Obviously it doesn't work grrrr.
This is doing my head in right now, just used links you can click...the images won't show.

 

[lymond]

I believe you are copying the wrong link

copy the line from the big "Forums" box, not the box under "Thumbnails Size"

It should look something like this (no backslash in first tag...I did that to show the text):

[/IMG]http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4156/lali275bcov0000.jpg[/IMG]
By [/URL=http://profile.imageshack.us/user/null]null[/URL] at 2011-02-16

I usually take out the line "By......"

 

[GKey]

Right click image in imageshack, click copy image location, then paste this into "Please enter the URL of your image:" window.

 

[Mylene]

Thanks a lot Lymond, that does the trick

 

[Mylene]

Whew finally fixed...one last question, do you recommend using spoilers around images if there are a bunch of them to not clutter it up?

 

[lymond]

Cool...it depends on where you are copying the code from. I usually upload multiple images at once, so then I have to go to "My Images" and right click and select "Share it". Then you see the different link boxes.

If you upload a single image, you get the boxes immediately when it completes the upload, which is actually a fairly new feature. Basically the same boxes, although the correct box in that case is labeled "Forum Code".

I just tested Gkey approach but got a strange result - just a little unclickable thumbnail, but I'm sure i did it wrong.