Domination on Immortal/Deity - a noob's guide

[beetle]

Here’s the updated and extend table. I kept the conservative build times since, (1) by ignoring ruins and cultural CS, it is pretty much worse case anyway; and (2) no one gave me a specific recommendation for something else. So this assumes 5 turns for a scout and 8 turns for monument or shrine.

The stolen worker is not a factor, since even if you catch one on T10, you still need to walk him back and chop or mine. So that is after T18 under best circumstances.

Hitting a culture ruin is huge factor, much more significant than monument before or after 2nd scout.

Build Order | Turn to Monument (+2 cpt) | Turn to Open Liberty (+1 cpt) | Turn to Republic | Turn to Collective Rule
Monument, whatever | 8 | 14 | 22 | 32
Scout, Monument, Scout | 13 | 17 | 25 | 35
Scout, Scout, Monument | 18 | 21 | 28 | 38
Scout, Scout, Shrine, Monument | 26 | 25 | 33 | 43

I think the table supports my assertion that scout-monument-scout cannot be better than both monument-scout-scout or scout-scout-monument.

 

[DanQuayle]

I agree with everything ST says except I would prioritise tiles with 2 hammers naturally over Cows or Horses, since improved tiles with 3+ hammers are the best things for making Settlers.

Its true that not every start gives a worker steal opportunity, but since I only play on AB and HB maps, I have to say that more than 3/4 of all rolls present an early steal. Plus, you can nearly always steal from a CS a little bit later.

My average worker count in a Liberty Domination game on T45, when I like to have my expansion finished by would be something like:

3 stolen from AI/CS
2/3 trained

And by T60, when I want to be going to war, I can usually expect 3 more, from a mixture of Pyramids, steals with AI or CS I didnt make peace with, the free one, and maybe another trained.

I usually like 7 or 8 workers when I go to war, more if I need war roads and bait/blockers

AB maps? Do you have a link?

 

[consentient]

Here’s the updated and extend table. I kept the conservative build times since, (1) by ignoring ruins and cultural CS, it is pretty much worse case anyway; and (2) no one gave me a specific recommendation for something else. So this assumes 5 turns for a scout and 8 turns for monument or shrine.

The stolen worker is not a factor, since even if you catch one on T10, you still need to walk him back and chop or mine. So that is after T18 under best circumstances.

Hitting a culture ruin is huge factor, much more significant than monument before or after 2nd scout.

Build Order | Turn to Monument (+2 cpt) | Turn to Open Liberty (+1 cpt) | Turn to Republic | Turn to Collective Rule
Monument, whatever | 8 | 14 | 22 | 32
Scout, Monument, Scout | 13 | 17 | 25 | 35
Scout, Scout, Monument | 18 | 21 | 28 | 38
Scout, Scout, Shrine, Monument | 26 | 25 | 33 | 43

I think the table supports my assertion that scout-monument-scout cannot be better than both monument-scout-scout or scout-scout-monument.

Well, even taking your table as gospel, which it isn't, that's a whole 8 turns difference. Which means that if you go S, M, S, you get all cities settled by the time you even hit CR when you go S, S, Sh, M.

S, S, Sh, M is really, slow at expanding, which multiplies into less culture, gold, hammers, etc. It's a really slow start.

You ought to maybe make another table that shows the comparable effect of all measurables - not just Culture, but Faith, Gold, Hammers.

I think you'd find that your BO doesn't really help much in terms of religion or even benefit from Pantheon.

Which would probably explain why it's only you (out of the players I know of on CFC) that is using it.

AB maps? Do you have a link?

It's not available as a separate download. It's a map option on AckenMod. I'm not sure what the exact difference is between HB and AB, but AB is better. 'Nuff said.

 

[beetle]

For a domination run, 3 city Liberty play, I would not and am not advocating S,S,Sh,M opener. I just stuck that in there because it is what I do most games. And having done so, I will let myself get sucked into defending it...

Well, even taking your table as gospel, which it isn't, that's a whole 8 turns difference.

S,M,S is 3 turns difference as compared to S,S,M.

My assertion is that S,M,S cannot better than both S,S,M and M,S,S.

If the early scout in S,M,S is good, then S,S,M is even better.
If the early scout in S,M,S is not so good, then M,S,S is better.

You ought to maybe make another table that shows the comparable effect of all measurables - not just Culture, but Faith, Gold, Hammers.

I am not sure I am clever enough for that. I will ponder the task.

I think you'd find that your BO doesn't really help much in terms of religion or even benefit from Pantheon.

I know, and you know, that it is not uncommon to miss Founding by 8 turns or less. I therefore assume that getting the pantheon 8 turns sooner is actually quite important.

But I would like to back up that assertion with some numbers, so yes, I am motivated to try and construct the more detailed table as you request.

And I think trying to found is not compatible with an early Liberty domination run. So maybe not this thread...

 

[stormtrooper412]

I think you should take into account the culture ruin you will probably get with a scout at one point. The games where I don't get at least one are quite rare, yeah it depends on RNG but for the most part you can be sure you can get it.

I have also kind of given up on founding unless there's a *really* good pantheon to be snagged. So, not a *good* one, but a *really* good one. Because by the end you'd have Shrines, Temples, Pagodas/Mosques and Religious city states and almost certainly have enough for a pair of Musicians if CV or Scientists if SV

 

[beetle]

I think you should take into account the culture ruin you will probably get with a scout at one point.

I agree, since it is more common than not. But what turn do I put that at? Also meeting a cultural CS gets you 4 or 8 culture correct? My intuition is that sort of RNG really skews the results -- which is why I argue that SSM must be better than SMS.

The window for SMS to beat SSM is very narrow. You would have to believe that ~8 turns of early scouting is less valuable than 6-10 points of culture.

So, not a *good* one, but a *really* good one.

I think you only need about 4fpt to have about a 75% chance of founding, but that is just really guessing on my part. At 4fpt, you hit the magic 200 for a GPr in 50 turns. You can get to 4fpt pretty easily from a mediocre faith pantheon and a single shrine. Shrine after monument, as you propose with for good faith dirt, is costing you 8 turns at 3fpt at least. Many times have I been at 176+ faith when the last religion goes! But I am guessing that 4fpt is not tempting enough for you. So I want to try and figure out how to run more numbers, to better make the case that the early shrine makes the difference.

It is easy to get disappointed with chasing a religion at deity. But I think people are frustrated because they are not being aggressive enough about it. Waiting for your scouts to catch you a pantheon is not reliable and it is not fast enough -- if you want fair odds to found.

But this is a thread (mostly) about three-city Liberty cb rush. I don’t think that play is compatible with an early shrine!

EDIT: Here is the results with hitting a 20 point culture ruin on turn 15. Of course, turn 15 would be less likely with a monument-first BO -- and more likely for the scout-scout opener.

Build Order | Turn to Monument (adding 2 cpt) | Turn to Open Liberty (needs 25 culture, adds 1 cpt) | Turn to Republic (needs 55 culture) | Turn to Collective Rule (needs 95 culture)
Monument, Scout, Scout | 8 | 14 | 17 | 27
Scout, Monument, Scout | 13 | 15 | 19 | 29
Scout, Scout, Monument | 18 | 15 | 22 | 32
Scout, Scout, Shrine, Monument | 26 | 15 | 25 | 36

I am at a loss to take much more from this additional exercise, except that hitting CR by turn 25 is still pretty optimistic. OTOH, hitting CR by turn 35 is pretty easy.

 

[consentient]

The thread is not limited to earlier rushes, but that Scout, Monument is the best opening for Liberty is pretty hard to refute and it seems now that you have posting at cross purposes, beetle. Warmongers really dont need to put hammers in a Shrine or divert their Scouts into scraps with barbs.

 

[beetle]

...that Scout, Monument is the best opening for Liberty is pretty hard to refute

Actually, I think my table refutes that assertion pretty well.

...and it seems now that you have posting at cross purposes, beetle.

No, the only nit I really mean to be picking is the conventional wisdom that SMS beats SSM. Under any circumstance. But then I may be missing something: Why would SMS be stronger for Liberty but SSM stronger for Tradition?

Please tell me, what values would you like me to use for builds, hitting a cultural ruin, or meeting cultural CS?

I am already disappointed that the turn 15 ruin doesn’t let SMS catch up completely to MSS, but then T15 is pretty reasonable (I think) for SMS, but not likely for MSS. But if I give some advantage to SMS over MSS then I must also give a (smaller) advantage to SSM over SMS. I am at loss as to what numbers to use for this exercise.

 

[Maxattack]

I agree, since it is more common than not. But what turn do I put that at? Also meeting a cultural CS gets you 4 or 8 culture correct? My intuition is that sort of RNG really skews the results -- which is why I argue that SSM must be better than SMS.

The window for SMS to beat SSM is very narrow. You would have to believe that ~8 turns of early scouting is less valuable than 6-10 points of culture.

Culture CS don't give culture upon meeting, only if you manage to befriend them early would they count but it seems to be pretty rare. If you're going for worst case anyway you can just cut off 5 turns from the end turn to CR, which is still a pretty big advantage. (by the way, I believe that getting a Settler 3 turns earlier is a BIG advantage in any kind of game so still worth considering SMS over SSM). You could also compute the number of ruins after which it is more probable to get a culture one than getting something else and multiply this by the average number of ruins per turn you get (don't want to do the math right now and probably never will )


I rewatched the first China LP from Acken and I noticed a lot of differences with my own attempts ! First he tries to get a LOT of workers early where I try to have 3 or 4 Archers running around before CR and the first Settler which probably slows me down. He also extensively uses the trick where you use your civilians to scout out barbs in the fog of war (always wondered how the guys in the LPs never lose workers or settlers to barbs, now I see it, I'm amazed ^^). I also noticed some smaller things he does better like not focusing growth too much and such.

I have lots of things to try now !

 

[beetle]

by the way, I believe that getting a Settler 3 turns earlier is a BIG advantage in any kind of game so still worth considering SMS over SSM

If a settler 3 turns earlier is a BIG advantage in any kind of game so still worth considering SMS over SSM -- then you would be doing MSS over SMS.

But no one, as far as I can tell, thinks MSS is better than SMS.

Sure, the payout on the second scout is less than the first scout. But if it is much, much less, why do the second scout at all?

Monument, other stuff -- is a coherent strategy.

Scout, Scout, Monument -- is a coherent strategy.

Scout, Monument, anything else but a scout -- is a coherent strategy.

Scout, Monument, Scout -- is not being entirely rational. Sorry, if it is popular, but what is the possible justification?

 

[Chum]

, or meeting cultural CS?

Why do you keep saying this like this is a thing?

You don't get culture from meeting a cultural CS.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Damn, beetle. I must admit when you were talking about S/S/Shrine/Mon I just wanted to dismiss it right out of the gate, because I thought it was terrible, but thanks to the work you put in it doesn't even seem like a bad option anymore.

Sure, loosing turns on CR is always bad, but is it worth it if you can get Desert Folklore? Yes, it definitely is. Is it worth it to get OWN if you have more than 1 non-Faith NW around? I think so. Is it worth it for Salt pantheon, Sun God, DotA? I think in some cases it is

Contrary to what other players do I rarely go S/M/S. I almost always go S/S/M/S, S/S/(buy S)/M/S or something among those lines. Scouting is one of my strengths, I don't even remember the last game I didn't get a culture ruin

Scouts in my opinion are severely underrated and I think your evidence shows that Scout / Scout openings can be very much viable.

 

[BlackWizard]

Well think is that first scout is much MUCH more likely to found ruins(and everything else) than second one. At least on Deity. Second scout be it your second or third build doesnt usually find so much ruins. SMS is usually better. SSM is better if you are lucky and find very much ruins or play lower difficulty

Edit. In another words if you build monument first your first scout comes too way too slow and if you build two scouts you monument comes way too slow


Edit2. Second scout is like half scout compared to first one. Not nearly as important

 

[beetle]

Why do you keep saying this like this is a thing?
You don't get culture from meeting a cultural CS.

Yeah, sorry about that. I have no good excuse.

Well think is that first scout is much MUCH more likely to found ruins(and everything else) than second one.

Yes, we all agree on this point.

SMS is usually better.

Please back up that with some data or exposition.

if you build two scouts you monument comes way too slow.

Not really. See my tables.

Second scout is like half scout compared to first one. Not nearly as important.

Okay, so why build a 2nd scout at all? Or why have the 2nd scout so early and why not much later in the build queue?

The only rational I can think of is that you figure that you are only likely to get a single culture ruin before 3rd SP anyway, so 2nd scout is all about the less tangible stuff anyway. But that still does not explain why the 2nd scout cannot be 4th or 5th on the build queue. Why is third in queue so important?

My assertion is that any argument for for scout before shrine monument works almost as well for two scouts before shrine monument.

Further, any argument that delaying the 2nd scout should be okay works to argue why delaying the 2nd more should be okay too.

The people asserting that SMS beats SSM have, so far, offered nothing but their say-so.

 

[beetle]

So thinking about this more, since I am a little OCD, I realized consentient handed me a good argument why SSM is almost certainly better than SMS:

I only go Scout, Scout ... if I’m playing America or Shoshone

So that implies one of three things:

1. The UA/UU makes SSM more fun than SMS. Fair enough!
2. SMS is better than SSM, but they are close enough that the UA/UA buff lets SSM beat out SMS for these two civs, and only for these two civs.
3. SSM is better than SMS all the time, but they are close enough that even really good players might not notice. But with these two civs, the advantage SSM has over SMS becomes apparent.

I am not sure if this will make you SMS advocates feel better or worse, but there is small window where SMS catches MSS and keeps its three turn advantage on CR over SSM. This tables show the benchmarks with hitting a +20 culture ruin at turn 30. That might be pretty late, I know, but that’s the sweet spot for SMS.

Build Order | Turn to Monument (adds 2 cpt) | Turn to Open Liberty (needs 25 culture, adds 1 cpt) | Turn to Republic (needs 55 culture) | Turn to Collective Rule (needs 95 culture)
Monument, Scout, Scout | 8 | 14 | 22 | 30
Scout, Monument, Scout | 13 | 17 | 25 | 30
Scout, Scout, Monument | 18 | 21 | 28 | 33
Scout, Scout, Shrine, Monument | 26 | 25 | 30 | 38

 

[BlackWizard]

Beetle: I dont have any data collected how many more ruins first scout finds. Maybe somebody else have?

 

[beetle]

I dont have any data collected how many more ruins first scout finds.

I would say the second scout is as much as half as effective as the first scout. The extra buffs fall off quickly enough that three-scout openers do not seem to be very popular at all. There are exceptions of course, but I experimented with three games in a row where my initial build order was 4x scouts. It is anecdotal, but that hardly seemed any better than my usual 2x scout openers. I got just a few more ruins, and met all the CS faster, but was significantly behind otherwise -- so not worth it. I had thought that, at the very least, having the 15x16 CS gold early would have been a noticeable boost -- but not really.

That kind of gets to the question though, since the ruins in your immediate neighborhood are fixed at T0. As are the CS you might get 30 gold from instead of 15.

The main objective of early scouting is (1) to hit all the ruins that are rightfully yours, and (2) hit enough to get a culture ruin before ~T30. SMS lets you do that, while MSS might not. SSM is probably not going to get you two cultural ruins. If an SMS opener has a 90% of letting you snag a culture ruin, how much better could SSM be?

My tables debunk the idea that SMS (as compared to SSM) is “a huge difference” for Liberty (and Tradition I think would work out about the same). The most tangible benefit from SSM over SMS would be, as my best guess for most games, one more ruin and 15 gold. So not exactly big stakes!

Here is another thought exercise: If the map had half as many ruins, would you still build a scout before a monument? If you answered to the affirmative, why? The answer to that question is why SSM is stronger than SMS. How about maps with ruins disable? For those games I still build a scout before a monument, because the early scout to me is more than hitting a culture ruin.

 

[consentient]

I play 3 Scout starts a lot, as does Acken. Not that I am suggesting I am as good as him, but it's not an entirely dead strategy. The purpose of it is less to do with ruins and more to do with the other functions that Scouts provide, such as harassing the AI, stealing workers, escorting Settlers, etc.

Btw, I've asked for this discussion about Scouts to be moved to another thread. Whether or not the Mods ever do anything about it, I'm not sure.

 

[EncryptedToast]

If you can get 6-8 CBs by T65, this will be a decent-enough army to take a capital or two. If you watch Acken’s LP of the DCL #16 China, you will see he takes 2 capitals with a Liberty domination very early.

This has got to be a typo. Right? 6-8 Composite Bowman by turn 65? I have seen as many archers, but upgraded to CBs.... that sounds like insanity to me.

If not I would love to see a build order and science path. Or better yet a video

Even on Emperor I am busy fighting for my lives with barbs. trying to steel and pillage everything by turn 40-ish.

Or is there a big difference in Deity that makes this possible?

EDIT: Watching the video now, you just started archery at turn 25 - will be interesting to see how 6-8 CB can be completed in 45 turns.

 

[consentient]

It's not a typo. You can get everything set up even earlier if everything goes right for you.

Use the Moriarte guide and let us know how you get on.