Deity University - Lincoln

[Earthling]

Played to 50 and then 100; anything I read here wouldn't have changed my strategy till 100 I think. Probably took a slightly different path than some others, but anyway I'll post my 50 writeup+screenshots in a little while.

This one is utter madness guys. I might still be in it and I'll have to for my pride but boy would this have to be one helluva hard fought game to possibly win. Some of my (our?) very favorite neighbors, land is just superb for teching and of course it's Deity to boot. Sounds like we all got a taste of the same barbs at the start but that's not even to start on our problems...

I'll keep at it though (well, when everyone else gets to turn 100, few days to a week I guess for me to continue, I am waiting and not going on now) and good luck to everyone; maybe someone can pull it off.

 

[kossin]

Regarding BUFFY:
I live to leave it with no mods on as it allows people not using any to play without the hassle. If enough people want it however, I'll include a save with it next time.

Regarding opening:
I agree with dingding's thoughts on this kind of starting location... I hate them!

I'm not a big fan of moving here... as others pointed out we could miss out on a strategic resource and on seafood to the south. Moreover we'd be settling on a riverside grassland, losing 1 turn and 1 forest to chop. There's also no guarantee of having more green eastwards but we lose out on the levee (6~7 hammers pre-modifiers but comes late).

Since there's no guarantee there will be metals or horses nearby, Hunting first before AH isn't bad since you get the equivalent of a riverside grass mine with the Ivory plus it allows to go for Archery should it be required.

 

[Silu]

Round 1 - 2000BC

Spoiler :

Disclaimer - this isn't a "proper" deity attempt where I actually think about stuff... Just an emptyheaded speedplay. Around 8 minutes for this round I believe

Settle in place, Hunting->AH, see Horse, go Mining->Wheel (reversing order wouldn't have mattered, though it should have, shoulda gone for earlier Chariots at the expense of other stuff)->BW.

See land is pretty crap, no commerce resos, just a single crummy river with no food handily. Toku nearby, Stone nearby... I plan to go settle on the Stone and shoot for 'Mids, just for kicks (I tend to do that often these days).

Oh, bloody 'ell, the barbs. THE BARBS. I could write a thousand words but I'll show a picture instead:



Yeah... Kinda screwed myself there making a 2nd worker before real units I survived that somehow, because my WM2 Warrior decided to be useful for once I guess. Defending your capital with a no-promo Chariot against barb Archer attacks is pretty...fragile playing as well. All in all, 8 Archer and 3 Warrior kills during the first 50 turns. Personal record I think

Which brings us to my mega-crappy 2nd site. With this detour I'm planning to go Writing before Mysti (because there's no commerce to be had, can't afford it) and plop borders with Libraries, kinda bone headed with non-CRE but what the hell. Of course that means NY is going to be mega-crappy for a long time, but hopefully the nearby seafood sites can pick up the slack meanwhile. My play is a bit gambit-y since it feels playing it safe with this start wouldn't give the desired outcome

Etheric:

Spoiler :

At least for me the barb frequency here is way above average. It's all in the map and die roll (no pun intended!), bad draw this time around At least no Spears and such in sight yet!

 

[Kid R]

Still in the game - yippee! It looks like quite a strong starting location, if commerce poor to start with. Starting with fishing but non-coastal isn't ideal although it means the lake is usable - I should have used it more...

Spoiler :

...but was too worried about barbs in this segment and chose hammers.

Hunting->AH

We have horse, which is great and makes wheel next obvious.

->Wheel

T16: 2x Toku scouts appear from the east. Don't really know what it might mean that two came together on turn 16 - perhaps he is a long way away on a snaky continent so neither one got ahead of the other.

Decided to improve the horses before the pigs because of 2 turns less travel time, plus I figured big hammers + commerce was better than big food because (a) we are going to be extremely short of commerce for a while and (b) it seems clear quite a lot of anti-barb military will be needed.

T21: Plenty of forests to chop so next is ...

->Mining->BW

Started a settler at size 3 even though I have no real priority site for him. Horses aren't online yet and barb archers are already appearing so more warriors will just be wasted cannon-fodder till I can get some land spawnbusted. Left the settler with one turn to go and built chariots till hammer decay started on him (built 3).

T43: Zara's borders located SW. Damn, I was hoping that was going to be our own personal peninsula down there.

T47: Good news - Zara is offshore, and also there is a great 2x gems site which seems a big priority to get for america. Blocking Toku is probably top priority though - I just wish I knew how close he was.

Damn barb archers are flooding in and attacking all my chariots inside the city borders - I can't get any out scouting! The only silver lining on the barb front is that the SW peninsula can be spawnbusted with 2 or 3 warriors so hopefully a chariot perimeter north and east is doable soon and we can settle a few cities. No mysticism yet so maybe the cow/ele/rivers hilltop site to the north for New York, as it needs no border pop, can work cows immediately, and will have low maintenance because of proximity. It also has some riverside grass - a couple of cottages will be very welcome. The worker is improving the cows now (turn 50) and the settler is standing by hoping for copper somewhere near before he settles

Tentative dotmap attached. Looking at this now I can see the ecomomy will tank very soon unless I'm careful. The 3x seafood site is starting to look more attractive than 2x gems as both gems need ironworking and I don't see how I can get that any time soon. (But note to self - DO NOT LET ZARA SETTLE IT!)

1 Reload: I replayed the last 6 turns when I realized at the end that I'd been working plains forest hill instead of elephants - doh! Made all the same moves though so shouldn't have any effect other than BW finished sooner in round 2.


View attachment Lincoln Deity University BC-2000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Artichoker]

4000 BC to 2000 BC:

Spoiler :

Tech Path:

Hunting, Animal Husbandry, The Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working


Washington Build Order:

Worker, Warrior, Worker, Settler->Chariot, ->Settler->Chariot, ->Settler



Good:

No casualties suffered so far, with 6 Barbarian Archers killed.
Settler ready to settle 2nd city
2 Workers ready to begin chopping next turn for increased production

Bad:

Ivory and Pig tiles pillaged by Barbarians from the north
Delayed production of Settler as a result of Barbarian attacks
Delay in scouting due to defending capital from Barbarians



I tried to minimize the risk of losing my first 2 Warriors to Archers in the beginning, so there is a lot of scouting to do in the next several turns. Fortunately, Chariots are very good at scouting and do not need to fear being attacked by Archers.

Will probably settle the Gem site first, if scouting reveals that it is still available.

 

[Bugg123]

Turn 50:

Spoiler :

Hmm... Don't like this type of start, and have no idea how I'm doing.

I guess there are two ways to do this:

Hu-AH-(Wheel)-Mi-BW (Gets pigs online, no way to whip/chop out archers early if no horses)
or
Mi-BW, then if no copper, Hu-Arch (safe, good production, gets cottages up sooner. Loses 5f1p for 2f3p early)

Since I wanted to stay alive, and hopefully get some sort of research going, I need to chop some of these trees sooner rather than later, I think. I'd also rather defend with Axes or Archers given all this forest. Mining hillside pigs isn't all bad either to start off.
So I went Mi-BW, obviously didn't find any copper in my corner of the world, but got the southern part fogbusted ok.
After that had to tech Hu-Arch and got archers online just after the settler was out the door, and in time to set up archers on both sides of Washington. They ate a lot of barbs, for sure.

Teched wheel (finished this turn). Next up is probably Pottery->Writing, but may need mysticism.. undecided. Need to check out the eastern part of the capitol a bit more. Queing up a settler that goes to the gem site (or if I find anything closer to the east, might go there). Trying to get up cottages in Washington and scientists in the seafood site next turnset.

edit: Ofcourse I realize I played this a bit too quick. And managed to queue a worker first in fishville. That should've been a workboat... oh well..

 

[Riot]

Spoiler :

Turn 50:

BARBS BARBS BARBS AND MORE BARBS.

I actually was defeated by barbs, the first time around, and this time went a lot more conservative. Learning already!

Techpath was Hunting-AH-Wheel-Mining-Bronze Working(to be finished soon.)

Settled New York 1N of the rice tile. 2 food + 2 hills, it can be a decent city for the early game while I figure out what to do.

I've been spamming Warriors to try and get out enough to fogbust the surrounding areas, but there's not that many forested hill tiles so mine tend to die a lot.

Cap is size 5 and I've got two workers out and I've roaded up NY, but my Horses got pillaged and that's going to be needed to be repaired.

Met a workboat from ZY and Monty, I think they're way down to the SW somewhere. Initial scouting revealed some gems to the SW, but IW is so far off with this commerce-less and barb-full start that I have no idea if settling down there is going to be possible.

Tokugawa is to the east somewhere and there's some other AI behind him - in the game where I was defeated he adopted Hinduism!

So it may be possible to get open borders with him via gifting a crappy city. Would love to scout but first priorities is beatdowning the barbarian hordes that just keep on coming, and seeing how close ZY is.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I decided to try this out. I took the non-WB save, but for some reason there were barb warriors (not sure if that was the way it's supposed to happen).

First 50 turns (up to 2000 BC):

Spoiler :

Settle in place. The tech path was: hunting>AH>TW>Mining>BW (4turns to completion). I'll probably go for Mysticism next to get the border pops and try to block Zara. I don't recall the build order. I think that it was worker, warrior, warrior, settler, chariot, but I can't be sure. I'm giving some strong consideration to moving my southern city 1W to prevent Zara from planting a city nearby and culture pressing (I know that it's in a less optimal spot).

Zara's fairly close by and lucky me, he went into WHEOOHRN mode a few turns ago. I have a strong suspicion that there's an AI behind him (has an espionage edge on him shortly after we met). So there's hope that he's going after someone else.

Also met another friendly neighbour (Tokugawa) who is somewhere East. It took a while to meet him, so I might have a little time to settle the Eastern portion of my empire.

Screenshots:

Spoiler :

 

[Earthling]

So my first 50 turns.

Spoiler :

Pretty simple, though different tech path/choices a bit from others I guess. Settle in place, mining => bronze to get chopping; pig initially mined (later barbarians pillage anyway and pasture after that). Second settler out on typical timing pace; New York is on coastal plains hill to the West and gets a WB. After Hunting and Ag discover horses; would probably have been more useful earlier in retrospect especially given barbs (fogbusting and early battles go well enough though with warriors). Initial plan was to get a third settler out to NE plains hill so that's what I'm working on at 50.

Meet Yaqob really early, at first panic but soon see he's overseas. Toku comes in from I don't know exactly where at this stage (east) but boy, is he a fun neighbor. Refuses to trade techs because he fears HE would become too advanced....



Second city:



Turn 50, nothing too surprising here

Again, I played till 100 but shouldn't have spoiled further here, and don't want to give out info to others who don't want it; suffice to say I'm having a tough time though and will be interested to see how everyone fared.

Edit: views on others' games - this may be rather spoiler-y if you haven't played at all past turn 50, and not trying to introduce bias, but just to comment, and I figure some others will play ahead too; though I'm not asking people to respond with further spoilers to this now:

Spoiler careful for spoilers :

kossin clearly seems to have the best opening yet. I know my expansion + barbs wasn't great and a lot of others seem like they'll be complaining a lot by turn 100 too, but kossin's seems way more workable, depending on what AI do too. Obviously settling further east against Toku would be absolutely necessary though; it seems like kossin might go to the Southwest or something which would could blow the advantage.

 

[kossin]

Turn 0-50 (2000BC)

Spoiler :

As I discussed before, I settled in place and began with a worker>warrior>warrior opening while researching Hunting>AH.

Animal Husbandry pleasantly revealed horses in the BFC so the next tech was TW to take care of barbs, as exploration showed quite a bit of land to our north and some to the east.

I met ZY and Toku, both are now Hindu but neither has founded it so there's at least another civ around.

...

Worker improved Corn and then pigs while building a second worker.
As he was about to come out, I microed Washington to get TW 1 turn faster and the worker in the same # of turns.



Following techs were Mining and BW.

I hooked up horses after that and built 1 chariot before finishing my 1st settler, which was sent south for the nice seafood site and for blocking purpose.

Made a second Chariot after the settler and they roamed the area north of Washington so barbs weren't too bad although I did kill 12 iIrc.

As turn 50 came by, my second city is up and I'm working on a 3rd settler to do a decent block on Zara, leaving me to deal with Toku somehow later on.


There's plenty of room for at least 6 good cities and a conveniently placed hill that could prove useful in fighting off Tokugawa should he get any ideas... which he undoubtedly will.


Pottery and Mysticism will probably be next, though I am not certain which first. It might also prove useful to get Masonry(walls) and Archery here against Toku.

 

[JensenUVA]

Turn 0 - 50 (2000BC):

Spoiler :

Settled in place. Tech path was AH > Hunt > Archery > Mining > BW ... I saw obviously the horses in the BFC, but I figured I would need archery anyway vs. Toku and I wanted hunting to improve as many tiles w/ my initial worker as possible... that's probably less effective than getting the early chariots

Met Toku (as I said before) on turn 11 from the northeast, did not explore sw until turn 44. Lost my initial warrior to a bear/warrior dogpile. Built 2 warriors after worker, 2 archers after that, managed not to lose any of those units, but my exploration is a little slow as I had to run from archers and fortify on hills/forests for a number of turns. W/ capital at happy cap and no neighbors to sw I decided to build settler/settler before workers to get some blocking cities out -- then I met Zara on turn 44 but thankfully he's overseas... all espionage pts are staying on toku, and he must know someone else, he's hindu

Settled NY on a green coastal spot w/ some food resources, I wanted to push on towards the flood plain but both archers were alternating defending capital city and capital tile improvements from barbarians and my warrior protection for NY saw an archer from afar on that plains hill near the river... so I cut it short... thank god toku injured the archer en route to NY, and the warrior was able to defend the city from attack.





I think the pros and cons of this one are pros - settling in the right direction towards toku, as zara will need to send a galley to get the resources SW of me (low priority for him ? ) and cons - I went archery rather than TW, (I still don't have the wheel) and I'll want to get my resources up, and I'll have to chop 2-3 workers after this next settler to get my early cities up and running

Anyone w/ deity experience, how quickly do I need to settle the land to the SW? There are some excellent spots there and I'm curious how quickly zara will cross the water?

 

[beestar]

Round 1 to 2000 BC

Spoiler :

Settled in place.

I learned the power of teching all the prerequisites, something I'd never really done before. Tech path:

Hunting, AH, Wheel, Writing, Mining. Working on BW but very slow with lots of fogbusters draining my economy.

The big decision was after AH: should I go for Wheel (Chariots), or BW (chop/slave), or Writing (scientists)? I went for Writing, but then a barb archer popped up 3 tiles away from my capital. IMMEDIATELY SWITCH TO WHEEL, and build a pasture on the Horses.

Build path: Worker, Warrior x 3, Chariot, Settler, Chariot, Worker.

I spotted the double-gems site, and thought I had to beat ZY to it. I had a settler there before I realized the gems were covered in jungle. Whoops. Instead, I put New York at the triple-seafood site to the west (same as dirtyparrot / 1N of Sleepless). In retrospect I think my settler should have been heading east JensenUVA & Etheric's New York site looks stronger and less maintenance. And it could have put to use the two workers I built, who otherwise have nothing to do.

I feel like I lost a lot of units to barbs, but looking at the screen I've killed 6 barb archers and 2 warriors vs. losing 2 chariots and 2 warriors. The fogbusting screen is up now but doesn't extend very far to the east. Due to losing chariots to archers, I still don't know how close Toku is to the northeast. I need to expand toward him. But I noticed that ZY already has a galley. I assume he'll settle his continent before hopping over to ours?

Due to the boneheaded errors (trying to settle jungle gems, accidentally working plains forest hill while building Settler), I'm tempted to replay this round ...




Q1. Pyramids is tempting for a scientist-driven economy - when do we expect it to go in Deity?

Q2. Is it worth building a library in the capital already?

Q3. Is it worth gifting a city to Toku to get to OB with him? I've never done this before but it could be vital in this game

 

[Eplekjekk]

First 50 turns - 4000 BC to 2000 BC

Spoiler :

I settled in place, queued a worker and sent my warrior exploring west. It didn't take long before I ran into Zara Yaqob, and on the next turn Toku's scout greeted me from the east.

I started by setting research to Hunting => AH. After spotting the nearby horses I subsequently teched The Wheel to get chariots out in my battle against the barbs. Washington built worker => warrior => worker => chariot => chariot => chariot => settler and is now producing a chariot to replace one I lost to barbs (at 90% ARGH). The workers improved the nearby tiles and started roading to where I intend to place my second city and where I intend to chop.

This is the current situation. The settler is ready to settle either on the plains hill for a city with fish+cow or on the grassland next to the fish, which will allow it to utilize the fish without me having to get mysticism first.


The most immediate concern is to secure enough commerce to fund the expansion. After BW finishes in one turn I could research Pottery for more commerce and Mysticism for border pops and happiness. That would involve expanding at a steady pace while not going bankrupt. Another option is to get the GLH in New York. That would require me to settle on the plains hill, tech Sailing => Masonry and chop aggressively. I don't think I have time to get mysticism first. That should take care of my economic concerns, as there are several decent coastal cities to be settled. Should I fail, however, it would be a catastrophe. But seeing as I am inexperienced at Deity level I will most likely go for the gambit and either ride the wave of success or crash and burn miserably.

 

[Etheric]

Some thoughts on the positions

Spoiler :

I do prefer kossin's position so far, more of a plan . And (s)he is more used to dealing with the massive barb invasion. I killed 13, kossin killed 12, which is the same ballpark, I was just not used to it, and struggled a bit more. Ah well there is a reason this is Deity UNIVERSITY .

 

[kossin]

Thoughts on games so far... I've spoilered them individually in case someone doesn't want to read others' saves yet.


First of all it's good to see so many submissions, especially from players that are jumping in the frey

Civahaulic

Spoiler :

That's one hell of a bad string of combats against Robin Hood. It seems you got less barbs overall than some of the other saves (4W,3A) but the losses were heavy and as a result, a settler is not even started. Teching is good, but that's to be expected with only 1 city.

Etheric

Spoiler :

You could probably have used the lake tile some more, right now it doesn't slow down your Chariot and accelerates BW by 1 turn. You got hit by a lot of barbs (8W,5A) but that's not a reason to keep so many units from fogbusting imo. If you don't, the land will be covered by barb cities and you might lose some good spots for a while ... chariots are bad at killing 4 fortified archers in a city. Good idea to focus espionage on Tokugawa.

Sleepless

Spoiler :

I like the Writing research a lot! Either lucky RNG or good fogbusting meant only 6 barbs so far. I'd move the fogbusting warrior 1E in the southern region, Zara's culture is taking care of the western tiles and there are a few tiles where barbs can still spawn E. Not sure I'd go for Mysticism right now though as chops could have proved more useful (unless you want to gamble on The Oracle that is).

Silu

Spoiler :

No save but looks like another of the unlucky hit-hard-by-barbs. Pyramids could payoff very nicely for specialists, considering there might be a lot of units needed to fight off Toku. Interestingly hasn't met Zara yet.

Kid R

Spoiler :

Too many warriors =\ 8 barbs (5W,3A) is more or less standard and needs to be dealt with (unless unlucky) with fewer units as maintenance is a killer (3gpt already)
I think I would probably have settled New York and roaded first if afraid of commerce hit.. right now it's wasted hammers and they count early on.

The more space you leave, the more likely it is Zara will send out a settler party. It's hard to say when as usually the AI resorts to boats when there aren't any regular spots left and we have no clue about his land here.

Artichoker

Spoiler :

Pillaged sadly otherwise in a strong position with surplus gold and BW coming in next turn. Chariots will take care or exploration nicely enough. Despite the setbacks, I like yours a lot.

Bugg123

Spoiler :

Unfortunately it turns out there were horses in the BFC so it put you back quite a bit compared to other rounds, even with no horses, there would have been enough time to get a few archers out in time. Barbs aren't so bad here (5W,2A). As you pointed out New York would have been better of with a workboat.

Riot

Spoiler :

No save but what I can say is less warriors, more chariots. At one point it's better to kill the barbs than drain your economy on fogbusting. Interesting encounters with the AI.

dirtyparrot

Spoiler :

1 barb warrior and 1 barb archer? Good grace!
Not exactly sure where the road beyond the horses is going, it'd be more useful going towards New York for 2. Working the lake would also add 2 and not slow down the 2nd settler. Looks quite promising otherwise, seeing as little hammers had to be used against barbs.

JensenUVA

Spoiler :

AH first was a nice gamble and it should have paid off by going TW next right away, meaning you avoid researching Hunting for now and go for a more useful tech right away... not Archery as you pointed out. The SW should be safe for some time, but it's hard to tell how long... it depends largely on Zara's available land. To be sure, have a couple settlers standing by and a warrior looking out for Zara galleys settle in a manner to block access.

beestar

Spoiler :

Another nice Writing beeline which could pay off big. Sailing is going to be worth 3 per city which is hard to go wrong with. Could use another Chariot back home. New York might be better off working the forested plains hill to build its wb? This is another pretty strong save.

Eplekjekk

Spoiler :

In a very good position it appears, similar approach to my own. Not sure GLH is a possibility here, with Zara's capital coastal and him Organized, odds he builds GLH faster are high. He might already be building it for all I know.

My own submission

Spoiler :

Seeing as Zara is overseas now, the gems site can be delayed a bit in favor of settling towards Toku to secure the northern part of our landmass. Will definitely gift a desert city to Toku in hopes to avoid conflict, it just means I need to spam settlers a bit without crashing the economy too bad. Techs needed: Pottery, Writing, Mysticism, Sailing. Not sure in what order to get them however.

 

[dirtyparrot]

@kossin

Spoiler :

I must have gotten lucky with the barb (no horde yet... Knocks on wood). The plan was to get the worker going to NY to road his way back after building his mine. As for the road, I just want to set myself to develop the gem city quickly as commerce is goingto be hard to come by (so I will probably go for IW after Mysticism to pay the bills). I'll probably settle cow/clams beforehand).

This was sort of spoilerish for myself (since I hadn't yet noticed that Zara was overseas), but overseas trading might be a nice way to boost our commerce).

 

[Riot]

I think one of the things I'm learning in transitioning over from Immortal to Deity is that barbs are a serious consideration on Deity earlier than I expected. Settling towards the sea in a big area like this like kossin did is I think is advisable, rather than settling on the rice clam to east side as the barbs just keep coming in over and over.

I've been replaying the first 50 to see which is the most effective opening, I definitely think Chariots have to be gotten ASAP to just help kill the barbs coming out, and NY on the coast to the rice/fish/clams site is probably best for the 3 food sources + good defendable area.

Also of course, barbs can't spawn from the coast, so that is nice.

Ok, save is posted.

 

[Soirana]

I think one of the things I'm learning in transitioning over from Immortal to Deity is that barbs are a serious consideration on Deity earlier than I expected.

Spoiler :

The problem is Zara is not doing his duty of barbwatch due to being on different landmass. This leaves some room for barbs to spawn.

 

[Civahaulic]

First round discussions:

Spoiler :

I think most people will agree that the "correct" tech path was Hunting -> AH

Had their not been horses, then something like archery / mining -> BW could have been debated.

But we had horses. So the right choice from there was TW ->Min -> BW

That's the tech path through 50 for most people. Does anyone disagree with this analysis? (even the people that went another way, would you agree that you made the wrong choice? even with our lack of knowledge of horses in the BFC?)

Next:

I think I'm the only person that built barracks. I did this so my chariots would have no problem with the barb archers. Ironic considering how Robin hood showed up (see my post first 50). I haven't yet built a settler but have slavery and will will start one in 2 turns.

Do you guys think that building the barracks was a mistake? If so, how big of a mistake?

Finally there's where to settle the first city. Most people scouted ~ the same amount.

The thing we don't know is how much land zara has to work with. If he has quite a bit, then we don't have to block as aggressively.

However, the water tiles to the west provide that early commerce that we won't otherwise have, so I think it makes sense to settle there first.

I like where kossin settled, but I think I like 1S of there better. Sure, 2H from where you plant the city is always nice, but I think mining those hills and getting the cows hooked up provide more hammers and make for a better 2nd city.

Then we can settle a 3rd city 2 NE of where kossin settled his and have the rice and 2 seafood in it's BFC: Would make for a nice GP Farm.

Finally, there's the idea of going for the mids. I really on the fence on this. If we did go for them, would we do it by settling our 3rd or 4th city on or near the stone? Representation would be amazing, and even the fail gold would be nice. OTOH, we have tok to worry about and those Hammers could be used to expand, build a settler for a gift city, and for archers + walls to defend.

I'd like to hear your take on the above and other points of the first and preview strats for 50-100.

 

[Silu]

Spoiler :

But we had horses. So the right choice from there was TW ->Min -> BW

That's the tech path through 50 for most people. Does anyone disagree with this analysis? (even the people that went another way, would you agree that you made the wrong choice? even with our lack of knowledge of horses in the BFC?)

I think I'm the only person that built barracks. I did this so my chariots would have no problem with the barb archers. Ironic considering how Robin hood showed up (see my post first 50). I haven't yet built a settler but have slavery and will will start one in 2 turns.

Do you guys think that building the barracks was a mistake? If so, how big of a mistake?

Finally, there's the idea of going for the mids. I really on the fence on this. If we did go for them, would we do it by settling our 3rd or 4th city on or near the stone? Representation would be amazing, and even the fail gold would be nice. OTOH, we have tok to worry about and those Hammers could be used to expand, build a settler for a gift city, and for archers + walls to defend.

Spoiler :

Yepp I think that's what almost everyone would go tech-wise, pretty much.

Imo Rax was a HUGE mistake. Never build Rax against barbs. Rax cost you almost 2 Chariot's worth of hammers. You want strength in numbers so if you get a low odd lose you have a cleanup guy to prevent barbs from healing with promos on the next round (which happened to you IIRC).

About 'Mids, on Deity you need to seriously be serious about gunning for wonders, there's no half-assery here if you want to have a proper chance of getting it. IMO settling on the Stone with 2nd city is a no-brainer here for the 'Mids route - loses river but gains Cow so long-term not a horrible position. Going 'Mids is pretty much an all-in play and the fail gold probably won't help you recover from the horrible disadvantage if you built more than 50% of 'Mids and lose it.