Deity Toku

[Anysense]

Its been a while since I played a serious game, so let's play one.
Settings: deity, pangaea, standard size, low sea level, no huts, no events, no vassals.
Why Toku? For some reason he is one of my favourite leaders. Also I did not want this game to be an easy walk.
The very first start happened to be good, suffice to say that every tile is riverside. SIP seems to be a nobrainer here.

Spoiler :

There is a language issue with BUG probably linked to my version of CIV (russian version of complete edition). The BUG interface turns french when the game language is english. I have no idea how to solve it.

 

[ikotomi]

Spoiler :

Genghis Khan's land is crazy. Lack of good food makes this one tough.

 

[Anysense]

That was tough indeed. Last time I saw a start without any kind of food was half a year ago. On the other hand there are 3 food resources 3 tile away from the capital.
Researched Ag, mining, BW, AH. No copper and no horses... Let's hope I won't need them. Since I have no time to build granaries or cottages I decided to skip pottery. BW is necessary to get first settlers and warriors quickly enough through chops and whip.
When I thought that it isn't all that bad, Zara made it clear that this is the time to quit the game.

Spoiler :

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Tough luck, Anysense.

It seems it would be very easy to get boxed in on this one.

I got lucky enough to evade any early DoW and got some favourable religious spread.
At 675 BC, I can now contemplate capturing Barb cities (2 to the north) :

Spoiler :

Marble trade with Cyrus made it easier to research Aesth into Litt.
Growing Kyoto has been tough. City was never whipped.
Research is likely to remain down before the Great Scientist is born.
Then maybe I'll be able to go on a Samurai rampage.
Genghis and Hatshepsut are at war, which isn't enough to make my position perfectly safe.

 

[Anysense]

Another try. Played till 250 AD.
This time GK declared in 875 BC. I whipped several spears and that was enough. In 575 BC bought peace with aesthetics. This slowed me down a little bit.
Another problem is that everyone tend to became afraid that I am becoming too advanced. I must to remember not to trade archery. A useless tech that only increases tech trade count. I bulbed philosophy and used a free GA from music to culture bomb Kagoshima, Illinois revolted but not flipped. At least I got extra wine and secured pigs. Perhaps it was better to keep GA for late use.
Now I am ready to start building army. Can't decide whom to attack yet. GK is at war with Shaka and Slaladin and will be an easy target. On the other hand Zara is a major threat.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

edit: I forgot to mention that Zara owns the apostolic palace.

 

[yyeah]

Want to play this map but i dont have time atm.
So so far i just think, should i move and where.
Gold start allways nice, but i dont c any food resources... kind of bad, i rather to have food then gold .
Hmm 4 FPs and 4 hills + elephants, maybe it wont be too bad looks like decent producion spot.
If i move 1SE i will have 6 hills, 3 FPs then, maybe this will be even better since theres some green river tiles to farm.

 

[yyeah]

Spoiler :

tech path agc-mining-pottery-alpha-math

13xx BC - DOW from GK ( he didnt even raze hes fist ;p)
12xx BC - DOW from Shaka

GG

 

[Kaitzilla]

I haven't played a tough diety game in a while.

I'll give this one a try since it sounds like fun.

**Edit**
Lawl!
Stole a worker from Zara at the very start.
Worker got eaten by a panther.
Am at 1400BC now and things are not looking good. ^.^

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^Yes, it's a very poor start, there's almost no production.
Imo, one definitely needs to chop into the first two settlers to make up for the lack of power tiles.
It's a delay on improvements but it seems to me like it is the only way to secure decent resources.
From that point, it's even possible one may want to whip into a third settler.

Lack of production would still prove to be a problem later on, though. It isn't like a BW opening solves everything.

On expansion directions :

Spoiler :

Wet rice tiles in the East and West make for two good early targets.
North is somewhat secured early on, so further expansion should aim to claim land to the South, or so I think.
Securing both rice tiles and the pig tile to the south would put one in a very good position. Not sure whether it's feasible or not. Couldn't secure the pigs myself.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Intrigued by my previous post and considering I had already deleted my saves for this map, I've made another attempt.

Ironically, at turn 100, it might be argued I overexpanded... At least I mismanaged some steps in expansion.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

The most southwestern city, especially, is all jungled and has been a heavy drain on the economy. Meaning I'm just recovering (Currency trade). Way too many turns have been spent doing +6 /turn.
Size 3 Nagoya has also lacked trade routes for too long.

On the positive side, the land that is claimed feels about right.
It means we can compete.
I'm not sure this attempt is much better than my first but it looks less clunky (Empire isn't divided in 2). Tech speed hasn't been nearly as good, though.

To get there :
- SIP, Kyoto starts Worker.
- Worker farms a floodplains, mines the gold (city size 3), mines another hill (4 yield tile, faster than another fp), chops !
- Tech path : Agri, BW, Pottery, Writing, Aesthetics
- Kyoto : completes warrior at size 3, then goes settler, settler, settler. Kyoto doesn't have enough food to whip the 3rd settler.
- First three settlers get 1 chop each.
- City locations :
- Osaka is city 2. This is the most endangered area : Genghis could claim it anytime, likely his spot for city 4.
- Tokyo is city 3. It hasn't been settled on the plains hills north of the rice (the natural location) but 1SW, having the pigs tile in mind, so as to prevent Zara from cornering us from the south (!). This worked well : Zara settled his 5th north of Tokyo, leaving us the pigs/copper spot for our city 4.
- Those 2 cities can grow on 3F1C tiles up to size 3, so they started on granaries and switched to Workers and size 2, to be whipped at 30H/60. This somewhat makes up for Kyoto being so busy stagnating and training settlers.
- Satsuma is city 4, the grab that allows us to push down south.
- Since Zara is going North, settling Kagoshima as city 5 becomes high priority (many resources there).
- Other cities completed the borders.

Few early pics :

T54, slider is raised to get Aesthetics.
Lone worker is chopping, secondary cities are training workers, cap is busy with settler for city 4 :

Spoiler :

T60, the 2nd and 3rd workers are done, city 4 is in the process of being claimed.
Kyoto will now grow to 4 and switch to settler again. Both northern workers are going to chop a forested hill.
Worker from Osaka will head to the copper tile after the rice is improved :

Spoiler :

T79, we've just gotten a hold of Alphabet and are trading around.
3 settlers have been spit out (my mistake, just 2 would probably have been better to decrease the downtime due to maintenance) :

Spoiler :

Back to T100 :

Spoiler :

Tech race, we're late to the party but have the means to catch up (or so I believe - this is where I'd rather have a couple less cities but extra Litterature and marble, as in my first attempt) :

Spoiler :

Well, if anything, it just goes to show that getting boxed in is no fatality.

 

[Anysense]

I was not satisfied with my second attempt (without academy and GP farm it was unclear how to keep up in tech) so I tried it again. This time 2 cities are in the same place (west rice and wheat-cows site). Two cities were settled differently, one claimed wheat and horse, the other one claimed all the furs in the world, but missed sheep for a while.
GK once again grabbed eastern rice so 2nd city was placed near the western rice, this city clearly should be placed 1SW or 2S1W for blocking reasons just as you did. I settled on ph mainly for safety concerns. I have no idea why there were so many barbs with so many ai's units wandering around.
I planned to put 3rd city between wheat and sheep but a barbarian city spawned nearby. Thus I settled on ph next wheat.
The fourth city was placed between wheat and horse and the fifth one is a furs city.
I played it more than a week ago so don't remeber all the details. Started with faming 2 FP and mining gold, choped 2 or 3 forests into first two settlers. Third settler was 1pop whipped in Osaka and the fourth one was 1 pop whipped in th capital. Eventually I managed to expand to 5 cities by 1320 BC. Later Shaka captured the barbarian city. 1320 BS screenshot.

Spoiler :

101 turn screens just for comparison

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I'm on the way to music. Still no currency but with just 5 cities currency is not that important. No one wants to trade either construction or HBR so I chose peaceful path.

I captured Navajo and signed pece with Shaka. Built GL and NE in Tokyo which made a decent GP farm city. Used first great scientist to build academy, senond one to halfbulb education. Started GA with a free great artist and switched to buerocracy and caste, starved Tokyo a little bit to get out 2nd GS in time. A the end of GA switched to slavery and theocracy.
I managed to lib nationalism in 540 AD. Not a good date indeed, pretty often I lose lib race in 2xx or 3xx AD.

Spoiler :

Note that all AIs still miss 1 or more prerequisites for liberalism

Then I declared on GK, took 4 cities including the capital. That was tough, had to destory about 70 units. Now I'm at 1120 AD. Can't decide whether to continue warring with cavalry and CR2-3 rifles or just finish GK and go for some kind of peaceful victory.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Anysense :

Well done, taking on GK with the first main war seems very tough. Looks like a feat to me !
At 425 AD, I'm sort of stuck there, myself, with two options :
- preparing a monster stack to move in his territory (Jewish AP may help) ;
- cease fire and backstab Hatshepsut.

Spoiler :

From the description of your game, a few things come to my mind :

Spoiler :

I'm not sure it's worth it to grow Kyoto to size 4 before starting on settlers.
Farming an extra floodplains only give you an extra 1 hammer towards building settlers and delays the time you'll be working the gold as well as the first chops, as well as the time you'll be starting on settlers.
There's probably too little benefit to justify growth, here.

Growing Kyoto, on this map, is difficult. The prime way to do so, I would think, is to settle a helper city to the south that can share the gold tile.
Relieving Kyoto from working the gold = +2 food in the capital.
This isn't for the first 50 turns, though, it is for later on.

Given the lack of food, you're right that Kyoto would want a second farmed floodplains before resuming growth, though.
However, that can wait until after the first settlers are done. At that point, you'd also want Pottery to allow the cap to grow on a Granary.

You could grab a healthy number of resources by settling towards the north, so...
... your expansion doesn't look bad.
Still, I think settling towards the belly of the map should have your preference.
It would give you more options later on, especially with regards for your war target.
As it is, t100, you're only neighbouring GK and monster Zara, whereas sharing borders with the soft Hatshepsut is very conceivable.
Invading Hattie first seems like the easy way to take on this map.

Another downside of settling north has to do with riverside. Riverside is free commerce. Riverside is south from our starting location.

Switching to Theocracy is a good move : easier war and easy Friendly Zara.

From what I've seen, the diplo situation on this map is most explosive...

Spoiler :

It's unclear to me whether you could, couldn't or neglected to take advantage of that fact.
Clearing 70 Mongol units is a tremendous amount, especially if it happens in ennemy lands and raises your War Weariness.
Did you have the opportunity for a shared war ? Sharing wars make things a whole lot easier.
I would think that, oftentimes, if one has to decide between sharing a war right now and teching up to a military tech, then it's worth it to delay research and favour the military side.
Slowing down the tech pace has advantages of its own : AIs enjoy less bonuses if you don't enter a new era.
Starting warring earlier has advantages too : AIs stack units and units over time, so there aren't as many early on, and even less so if you can start clearing them.

Of course, the super unit spammers don't make an early war all too appealing.
And maybe you suffered (to some extent) from having "only" 5-6 cities.

How to keep going from where you stand depends on :
- how fast/easy it would be to finish Genghis ;
- how easy it would be to switch from Genghis to another target.

If his stacks are mostly broken and your army is in good shape, I'd be tempted to try and kill him. You'd have to research how much other AIs like him, first, and if they would accept him as a vassal.
If he's still a tough nut and you can swiftly DoW, say, Hattie, then taking him as a vassal seems fine.
If you still need to build up troops (Cavs) before DoWing anyone else, then I'd think it's fine anyway to let the war against GK last some more.

In a general manner, in a full-scale war, I aim to kill the first opponent. You can do more with their cities than with a vassal.

Next war, you should probably seek for allies via bribes/joining.

 

[Anysense]

Genghis is completely broken now. I had Zara and Shaka on my side. Without their help I would likely have to face 100+ units. Shaka took one city and signed peace. Zara did a good job sieging a city and leaving it with just one defender. That was very kind of him.

Spoiler :

Saladin and shaka declared on Hatshepsut, I joined them when Saladin asked. Elephantin seems to be the only worth to be taken. Others got most tundra/desert tiles, though there are some valuable resources around Thebes.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I thought of backstabing Shaka but many of his cities are under arabian cultural pressure. Zara and Slaladin look too strong now, though with new cities my prodution will be doubled. Saladin seems more appealing target because he shares border Shaka, i.e. the latter can help a lot if bribed.
There are 4 military instructors in Karakorum, but without biology this city will suffer lack of food. Some other cities could benefit from enhanced farms. The only problem with biologe is its prerequisite - scientific method which obsolets GL, that is GP generation will stall for a while.
I have a spare GA and will get another GP in 5 turns (most likely GS). Start golden age or keep the great artist for culture bomb? I will need the latter if I am going to fight either Zara or Saladin. Their cultural influence is becoming awesome.

Regarding helper city. I thought of this but GK settled there in 1680 BC. I founded 4th city in 1440 BC, that is the helper city must be the third one. But this would claim only jungled pigs which does not sound good for a third city. Wheat+cows are far more appealing. It is a difficult trade off, since the start is rather poor I leaned to getting more production asap. Now the capital is stuck at level 16 and will not grow above 17 without biology. Another downside of this decision is that I lost the south as whole...

edit: fighting GK may be a feat but your overexpansion is extraordinary!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Ok, I can see better what happened. Thanks for the screens.

Spoiler :

I hadn't realized that GK's borders extended that far to the South-West.
Having Zara as a war ally must have been very convenient. I guess that war would have been close to impossible without allies (enters Shaka).

GK is toasted, indeed. I'd definitely kill him, in your position.
Many AIs like him but they like you, too. So you can beg for a peace treaty when the situation becomes too dodgy to keep the war going. Zara is also willing to take peace with GK for... not a whole lot.
At the moment, Genghis doesn't seem willing to cap, so maybe wait for the next city capture and re-assess ?

Biology ?
Farms are your most common improvement. Surely that makes the tech worth it. (Very much so ; a small revolution in its own right.)
It may also make you re-evaluate the worth of Hattie's lands. Brown Biology farms are very good tiles.
And Hattie is isolated already.
Maybe some other AI would give you better benefits but they are tougher as well.
Invading Hattie may give you the time to build up tremendous Cav numbers.

I like, by the way, your 2-move GG riflemen
Also, there's a 2-fishes city spot on the northern coast that will soon be open to you. Maybe you should queue in a settler, somewhere.
Some of your cities suffer from a lot of whip anger. Is there a possible location for the Globe Theatre, somewhere ? I haven't examined the question but I think it's worth raising.
There also lacks the Heroic Epic but, unfortunately, you don't have (never could ?) marble. If you're looking to get a military win, right now is surely the right time to start on the HE : you don't need instant production anymore. Again, I haven't looked at the potential city spots for the wonder.

re : settlers :
If you invade Hattie, at least if you capture Elephantine, then you would probably be well advised to produce another settler to secure the borders with Zara.
Settling 1S of the copper tile would help you very much control your tiles. Maybe another location is better, you get the principle

 

[Anysense]

Genghis won't capitulate because no vassal states is checked.
Traded scientific method and revealed oil

Spoiler :

Good news is that we have oil, ever better is that oil source is located in a city, i.e. no need for a well and it can't be sabotaged. I roughly estimated that I can get tanks by 1550 AD if focus on research after GK and Hattie are gone. So may be it is worth postponing major war?

Turfan with its immense food surplus is a good candidate for the globe theatre. Rifles could be drafted nearly every turn.

I don't know whether it is possible to settle as you said, need to scout it. Anyway thanks for a good point. Zara has an awful habit of placing cities on my border and pushing borders aggressively.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Yes, with his Steles, Zara is about the worst peaceful neighbour one can have.
He also has this nasty habit to culture bomb his cities...

Settling cities in captured spaces :
When a city is captured, there's a small amount of turns, during which the city owner's culture disappears but isn't replaced with the contesting culture (Zara's, here).
One can use this timeframe to sneak in a city right on the border between the former owner and his neighbour.
That often comes in very handy when one can't afford to invade the other neighbour in a short time.

So may be it is worth postponing major war?

Not sure, this needs some careful consideration.
My gut feeling is that if you can war against Hattie without suffering many losses, then you can use that war to build up troops.
If it would be a war of attrition, then teching up is certainly a valid option.

620 AD, decent hammer assembled, time to strike back ?

Spoiler :

Genghis has just made peace with Hattie, gaining a city in the deal...
... said city is undefended and 3 tiles away from Osaka...
... Can get a Longbow there this turn.

GK prolly has some other nice stack(s) in his territory but I guess I've got a window, there. Facing a Castle, though... Some Trebuchets would help.

May lose Lib to Saladdin. Spent too many turns with the slider down waiting for a GS.
Or I may win Lib and take Replaceable Parts, dunno.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

GK, I dare you (960 AD) :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

620 AD was definitely too early to go on the beatdown, so I kept sitting tight.
Now, however, it should be an easy cruise with 1.0 power rating and Hatshepsut just bribed in again.

Maybe could have pushed earlier but I wanted another city defence, lacked siege and Theocracy. I'd have been more vulnerable to counterattacks.

Lost Liberalism to Saladdin (tech leader with Zara), won Economics as a consolation prize.

~~~~
1030 AD
~~~~

Bugger, are you still pretending you came for sightseeing only ?
So, you say your love for stone and hills drove you here, uh ?
Don't be a tourist, that's silly !
Come, come at me ! lol

Spoiler :

(Convenient hill city is convenient.)

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Anysense :

Another way to decide whether to tech up or emphasize military would be to reason backwards from your victory condition.

Several questions can help through the decision process :
- What sort of victory condition are you aiming for ? (I'm guessing neither Space nor Culture)
- What AIs do you need to take down to get there ? (Is the East enough or will you need to fight West ?)
- In what timeframe will you get to fight the strongest AIs ? (Zara ?)
- What sort of tech level are they likely to have by then ? (Railroads ? Less, more ?)

Building up a large army right now can go to waste if it goes obsolete when comes the next fight. Upgrading a massive army cannot be an option.
Building the army now may be good enough, though, if the conquered land gives you the means to tech up. These two points may be hard to evaluate beforehand.
At this point, I guess we can mention "expected returns". If the returns you can expect from your current tech level are too low, then it is reason enough to tech up.
However, if you tech up now, you can also expect your later opponents to tech up. In this light, it would be bad if the new tech level you reach would become obsolete by the time you reach your later opponents. You'd then need a tech switch again.
Considering your game is still relatively early (late Renaissance), if you tech up, it may be wise to invest in durable units. Artilleries come to my mind. Like... really fast. Are you sure Tanks are the better option ? What's the special appeal ?
Your final boss will have hordes of units you'll want to clear. Are Tanks really good at that task ?

Well, just food for thought,
This is all very generic advice, it may or may not help.

Hmm...
... At 1140 AD, you have a very minimal army. This may factor in your decision as well.
What I can see, though, is that the age of Rifles/Cavalries hasn't ended against Hattie and Genghis.
Also, provided allies, you may sustain your current wars, with success, without a massive army.
Later on, however, you will most certainly need to raise your numbers quite a bit.
Considering the current world war, is there a lost opportunity from playing all very peaceful ?

 

[yyeah]

^Yes, it's a very poor start, there's almost no production.
Imo, one definitely needs to chop into the first two settlers to make up for the lack of power tiles.
It's a delay on improvements but it seems to me like it is the only way to secure decent resources.
From that point, it's even possible one may want to whip into a third settler.

Yea if you want to settle cities. My plan wasnt to settle cities but go for like 700BC Construcion rush. I was planning settle only 4 cities. Thats why i skipped BW and go for Alpha. Just wanted to be in Construcion faster becouse of trades, and going alpha with goldstart isnt taht bad. Allso there was possibility to bribe some of agressive ais against some1 so i would have sometimeto prepere but it just wasnt possible.
Tbh nothing i could do there
Could have decent attack date around lets say 700BC.

Edit
Well i could do 1 thing, or i should say rather i shoudnt settle this rice spot in east righ on GK borders.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Is Construction really better than straight up Swords ?
The only way I can imagine to justify skipping BW involves an Alphabet beeline, not Construction.
I think Construction is too far down the tech tree and that, by then, BW would have paid off nicely (earlier cities, workers, granaries, growth, cottages, etc.). Maybe I'm wrong, even though, BW costs less than 200 beakers, I do think one can get those back, and some more.

Alpha beeline, otoh, can go hand in hand with a swords rush.
Example :

Spoiler :

Genghis DoWed first. I followed in his footsteps.
Trouble with a rush like this ? 13 cities Zara, maybe ? Probably ?