Deity unrestricted 01

[Snowbird]

So, I have not finished a game in about 3 months or so. And was not too comfortable with Deity even before that. I also loaded Tectonics, which is... not a fair map. I think most of tectonics maps are winnable although.

Start (Quin of Dutch)

Spoiler :

Three hammer bonus made me really not consider anything. Played to turn 20.
Situation

Spoiler :

There is at least one civ behind Toku (Tokugawa of Portugal that is green blob on culture screen).I probably underscouted, but I do not see much benefit exploring toku borderts.

My line of thinking here --- HA, kill Toku. The red dots are more Poterr+cottages, purple immediate gains. after looking at them I think maybe doing purple + dropping extra city in the green riverside -- which would have south city sheep in the second ring.

My expectations --- well, probably not going to be eaten by barbs on this map, so some mid game stupidity, which I will not be able to correct.

 

[lymond]

I recommend checking on imgbb whether there is a way to increase the resolution on image upload. The current images are way too small to be of much use to us.

I generally use Imgur, which allows me to increase rez on upload. I assume other image sites have this feature.

 

[Snowbird]

Don't know... I can see green vs brown and fish vs horse...

 

[Snowbird]

Played to T58
The wheelPottery>Mining>BW

Spoiler :

I think horseback riding is the next tech. If I had a bit more land of the same quality... I mean, green riverside is very good for the tectonics script, but living next to Toku is not a good option.

 

[Nick723]

Looks good so far!

Not sure you necessarily need to go for Horse Archers here, there’s room to expand and attack later?

Would like to get a chariot or two to scout prior to hitting him at least.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Why orphan the crab to the east? If you wanted horses first ring, maybe could have settled NW of horse, getting horse and sheep in first ring and staying on river, going further out to grab space as well. Then could backfill the fish+ crab spot with the sheep already in culture for a quick 3rd or 4th city development.

 

[Snowbird]

Toku border is not in the picture, cause it can be seen only in cultural overlay, but it is basically Toku and tundra left. Maybe I could have squeezed an extra city like 3W of Utrecht - having 2 cities on single sheep is not ideal, but green riverside has lots of value on tectonics.

Crab is a complicated issue. In the essence, what is the bottleneck for a breakthrough towards the goals... I think the commerce is especially early on - so settling was done to prioritize green riverside accessible without chopping. The cottages should give enough boost to do stuff, while extra crab essentially does not change much.

Overall good cottage city (Hague) + another AI starting spot (cap + typically possible to squeeze really good city near the cap), should give enough of advantage to get to the winning position. The whole point of HA/early attack is mostly based on tectonics not being a fair map. Swatches of tundra/plains, lack of rivers, runaway AI's... very typical issues.

I'll try to make some progress in the upcoming week.

 

[Snowbird]

I threw the towel ~T90.

I've got a few Portugese cities, but C2 spears + protective archers on the hills. And I never found Toku's source of iron (by late connection I was expecting something razable in tundra, but probably it was something either very deep south or very deep west).

I think all in on Tokugawa (who expanded more or less like original Portugese - which was to be expected) was not the right call. I think squeezing one more riverside city and teching would have been better. Oh, well, at least I did not sunk lot of time into this.

 

[krikav]

Well, thats the dark side of HA rushes. Doesn't work out all the time.
As you say, playing a longer game could probably have been possible with all the rivers and marble. Cuir breakout with 6-7 cities.

Qin of dutch sounds like a pretty lackluster combination though.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Given the starting area, I wouldn't want to HA rush, even if it works.

To my knowledge, they do HA rush with 2 or 3 cities, not 4. Can backfill after crushing the enemy.

Tokugawa can be interacted with. +1 for years of peace, gift a resource and wait +2 for provide resources. At +3 you can begin exchange.

 

[Snowbird]

I will probably try replaying without HA - probably from turn 0. Overall replay has more educational value than running another random map.

I think 3 hammer bonus and pottery before BW are still good, maybe even squeezing something else before BW (writing?). Utrecht maybe 2W (to allow 2xseafood city). Moving hague 1NW and Rotterdam 1N is also cute, but does not allow to free crab.

Overall my failures with HA typically look like this game --- set mind on HA on turn 0 and not have a really good commerce source early on.

As far as Toku goes...can always try gifting a city in the icy tundra or smthing like that.

Maybe I should do smthing seriously stupid and ... build ToA? Lots of great people points from that thingy.

 

[konata_LS]

It looks like an interesting thread. Sometimes unrestricted leaders can be fun, for example, Boudica's Praets or Toku's Oromo warriors .

Qin of Dutch is weak for HA rush. Without Chinese starting tech and CKN, Qin would became a below-average leader.

IMO Boudica of Dutch (cheap barracks + high promotions) or Ragnar of Dutch (cheap barracks + good commerce) would be better than Qin for an HAs rush.

 

[Snowbird]

By that logic, any start without 2+ wet corns and 2+ gold is not worth playing either...

 

[Snowbird]

So, I've tried dotmaping peaceful stuff and it sucked... I mean if I settle on the PH 1N of marble it would work nicely, but I probably never would do that without knowing the map. Otherwise squeezing reasonable 5th city would be a problem.

So, I decided to give one more go for HA... without fancy pottery, focusing on fur/coast...

And it worked:

Spoiler :

Well, there is an offensive Toku stack, which was distracted by worker sacrifice, but I would call cease fire this turn. I do have a medic1 Charriot + 13 HA left and there's is even more wood for chopping in new areas.

Well, I think HA were at least a reasonable call, just needed a considerably better focus/execution. I'll chalk that one as a loss.

p.s. I think at least screenshot quality improved

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

Still orphaning the crab? Surely given the limited city spots, keeping the option for a 4th passable city has value.

 

[Snowbird]

Let's put it simple.

If one settles on the marble for three hammer cap center (which is in the dark is very good move), there is only one tile to pick the crab. Either that spot fits in the plans or not. For me definitely not.
All other talking on this topic is of tertiary importance.