Deity Toku

[Snaaty]

...
Why do you think "pangea, natural shoreline (most important)" is most important?
...

because it will generate a map with lots of peninsulas and even small islands and the chances are high that you will start in one of these peninsulas. having to defend on 2 fronts isnt possilble (at lest not for me)

...techtrading off is another must, but i thought that was obvious when playing aw (else the ai will get like 100000 pos. modifiers for mutal struggle and all will happily trade, independend of religion and such)... ...again, not winnable (for me)

 

[NihilZero]

This is pretty off topic but relates to the earlier discussions about early DoWs on Deity.

Spoiler :

Aaaaaarrggh!

My favourite part is how he thinks this stack is not enough and has another couple of units bringing up the rear.

I think that's the earliest DOW I've seen on normal speed.

Ha! I beat you by a few turns, AZ.

 

[ahcos]

Yeah, had just the same thing on my game one minute ago, 1800 bc DoW by gilga who was barely in sight Nothing you can do.

 

[Dirk1302]

Snaaty's map you're dowed by all ais 4000 bc, now that must be earliest date .

 

[dprkforum]

I watch these games from afar, and TMIT's let's play with bewilderment. I have enough trouble with the warlord difficulty, so chances are, I am not playing this map any time soon.

 

[codehappy]

AbsoluteZero: just wanted to say I really enjoyed watching you finally beat this devilish map on YouTube. Thanks for posting the great videos!

 

[Gwaja]

Back in the day, this thread was hot and the game itself served as a great tool to jump into Deity. All the players no longer active yet very knowledgeable contributed with tons of great info as well.

I hate to necro an old thread like this, but I ponder if anyone recently have given this map a try?

 

[soundjata]

I tried it (a little while ago) : it's just too hard for me ^^

 

[drewisfat]

I'll try and give it a whirl. Looks like a lot of fun and a good challenge. Ultimately I doubt any pangaea map is going to be as hard as isolated + bad land vs runaways, but that's usually just boring hopelessness. Stuck with warmongers is Toku's forte and he might have better survivability than more traditional "good" leaders. Comments from yesteryear in this thread about it being an auto-loss if you're attacked early are strange to me. Early DoWs are only game over with a greedy opening. Otherwise, they're not as serious as later DoWs that include catapults.

 

[soundjata]

@drewisfat this map has it all

Spoiler :

Aggression ; diplomacy and especially luck

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ Have you tried

Spoiler :

Stealing workers from and harrassing your Eastern neighbour ?
AGG makes it considerably easier (although getting a Woody 2 may be difficult - Barracks would help)
And that's a way to secure some land on Pangaea.

 

[sampsa]

Comments from yesteryear in this thread about it being an auto-loss if you're attacked early are strange to me. Early DoWs are only game over with a greedy opening.

Well, that was 10 years ago. Many people had no idea how to set up a defensible position. Instead they tried all kinds of trickery, like 1-city oracling alphabet.

 

[drewisfat]

Yeah there sure are a lot of creative ways you can lose if you stubbornly refuse to get archery in a map that screams archers. Haven't seen someone chariot rush on deity in a minute lol.

I'm not a huge fan of worker stealing. Best case scenario is you get a worker at the cost of relations with your neighbor and some fog busting. Worst case scenario is other AIs hate you for the DoW, you can't get out of the war, a stray archer walks into your territory causing mayhem, the worker which you thought was unprotected actually had an archer escort 1 turn behind, etc. There are exceptions, like if I know I'm on an island alone with a psycho, or I get a dream T4 steal, or I at least have IMP so I can fall back on a gift city. In general though I leave worker stealing to AGG AI settings, where you can force peace by city threatening (but even then, it's not consistent on a religion founder).

 

[sampsa]

I'm not a huge fan of worker stealing.

Indeed! It's greedy and might be good if you can make it work, but there are always downsides and it can backfire. Talking about deity/normal. On immortal it's already a different thing as AIs in general aren't able to scratch you.

 

[drewisfat]

What a game!

Spoiler T1-66 :

Went Ag-Hu-AH-Mi-BW. I don't like going straight AH when we're PRO and next to Monty. Skipping hunting gives up the boost which can put archery out of reach in time for the earliest possible Monty DoW, if otherwise playing naturally.

Spoiler T39 :

Aaaand Monty's already plotting lol. The good news is potential city placement is perfect here, with a hill city 2SW of capital and a hill city 2SE of capital with a safe interior city 4S. Beautiful defensive structure that lets me keep maintenance down by shuffling troops around. I was thinking of going SW first since it has the two resources to improve. But with the plot landing this turn I re-evaluate it and decide on chopping up to 4 cities with just the 1 worker. South city first because it grows well without worker turns, then east, saving the west city for last. If the DoW is coming my way, I want the first wave to land on my capital. While that happens I can sneak my settler in. Otherwise there's a few vulnerable turns where I can't defend it with archers.

Spoiler TGW :

I am very excited to see my friend The Great Wall so close by.

Spoiler Archery :

Everyone knocks fishing/myst/hunting as "weak" starting techs, but this is why I don't like to judge
I don't care about WFYABTA, this is 4 turns of GDP in the present.

Spoiler So it begins :

Last turn I saw his stack, 3 axe 1 spear. This turn they lurch ahead. War is imminent. But the main stack is the least of my problems. Somehow Toku can afford to expand in my face while plotting. My settler is a turn behind. Apparently I wasn't being clever settling this city last, I was the greedy fool who didn't secure horses. However, I do have some resources to play with here. His camping spearman revealed his ambition to settle here a couple turns ago. By moving a warrior on the same tile as the spear, when he DoWs next turn his spear will be popped back. He can just slaughter me, but the instant the city site is obstructed the AI's settler pathing gets all confused and takes a few turns to sort itself back out.
The good news is, there's not one but TWO workers I could steal. That explains how he afforded to expand and attack, he sacrificed his worker defenders and it's gonna cost him. I'm not afraid of his main stack, I'll have 3 PRO archers in capital by the time he arrives. I'm just hoping he leaves my warrior alone so I can get a worker steal.

Spoiler :

There's even a THIRD front to this conflict involving my starting warrior. I had been rerouting this guy from fog busting duty now that Tokyo's up to capital defense, figuring I might get away with 2 archers 1 warrior instead of 3 archers. Instead I have to return him to defend against this random archer lol. Now I've lost enough games to barbs to know that the odds of his misguided archer succeeding are not exactly 0%. But it's an unpromoted archer, and this is an AGG warrior in a hill city.... and I have no choice.

Spoiler :

The plan worked! Kinda. I had to regroup so I could move two warriors at once to the forested hill. But Monty grows a brain and moves his spear to said hill. And now we're just all awkwardly sitting over here...

Spoiler Pottery :

~FiShInG iS tHe AeStHeTiCs Of tHe StArTiNg TeChS~

And my starting AGG warrior defended Tokyo from the archer

Spoiler :

The spear moved off the hill next turn and I moved my warriors onto the hill. But his main stack which was next to Kyoto already actually moved south. This confused me so much that I got panicky about my settler/workers baiting his troops, so I didn't move them with the warriors.
The next turn his spear attacked into the forested hill and died . So yeah, pretty sure I just tricked myself out of a turn with the settler, but we're still ahead of his. His main stack also attacked and I took no losses.
Now the situation has stabilized with a road linking Satsuma and Kyoto. I keep most of the defense at the more vulnerable Satsuma, ready to move them back to the capital if he moves toward the capital. I finally have a moment to breathe so I can finish my barracks. He does immediately try and fail to take Satsuma here with just 1 axe 1 spear.

Spoiler GG#1 :

Monty's third wave heads to my capital with 6 spears 2 axes. All those spears are great news for my archers. T65 I get my first GG. The exp breakdown on my archers was a bit awkward at 0/3/6/6, but I can work with it. I move the fail archer away and settle on the 3xp archer to bring all 3 archers to drill IV. I start thinking about HBR.

Spoiler :

I thought this was a beautiful turn to finish with. Warrior arrives in time to deal with Osaka's anger. One worker finishes road this turn that links Osaka-Tokyo with Satsuma-Kyoto, and the other worker finishes road this turn linking everyone to Justin, who I then OB with.

I have to credit the traits for coming in big here. Not one but two critical fights with AGG warriors. And PRO makes defending with archers just much more comfortable. You can go with the drill line first for the big drill iv payout. Without PRO this takes too long, and you'll take more losses without the free CG-I. So you're basically forced into taking the CG line yourself. I like the long-term prospects of drill for farming exp, dealing with pults, and just being able to run a leaner ship. Regardless which you go with, PRO lets you operate safely with 1-2 fewer archers, and every penny in maintenance is huge this early.

 

[krikav]

Lovely intense fighting @drewisfat !

 

[soundjata]

@drewisfat fishing as a starting tech is completely overpowered

Very nice going and nice luck on getting

Spoiler :

dowed by Monty

 

[sampsa]

@drewisfat pretty cool that you managed to show "how to set up a defensible position" in such a pure form after our discussion. Can we have moar?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

To me, Drew played that well and his game now falls into the exact grim situation that's been discussed to death in this thread by most competent players.

Spoiler :

The Monty DoW most likely ruined his chances, despite an excellent defence. The early promos mean he's probably safe from Monty until HAs/Catapults.

However, he is still not safe from a dogpile. It seems very hard to get into the trading game, now. And when he will want to DoW somebody of his own, it will be near impossible to insulate against bribes.
Zara and Sury have started trading early. Justinian has now revolted into Theocracy for double promos. I bet all three of them have Alpha and Monarchy by now and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them landed Feudalism around 1000 BC or, in any case, long before 500 BC (looking at you, Justinian). Once Feud is in play and AIs start warring on the other side of the map, it will be impossible to control capitulations, if it comes to that, or break the Eastern neighbour, who is the soft target.
Now how can he gather a capable stack before then ? Drew doesn't have Writing and is researching HBR with access to something like 20 tiles. Elepult against Justinian is way out of reach. Horse Archers to turn the tide against Monty will further accrue the tech discrepancy with the AIs that are trading.
As I see it, the best case scenario is to achieve Peace with Monty and a HA rush on Justinian (which risks to fall right back in the bribes scenario). But, with very little commerce or production, I will be very impressed to see it happen.
Otherwise, slow build a stack and try to piggyback in some AI on AI war. Still pretty bleak. An AI DoW on Justinian would be best.

gl gl, I hope you come up with a solution and an update.

 

[sampsa]

@BornInCantaloup Amazing insight, considering there is no save even! I don't know what kind of successes were you expecting, but clearly something extraordinary. I have no idea why or how "there is very little commerce or production". Diplo looks good, too.