Easy Diety Map (Pepe26 batsignal)

[Grashopa]

It's brilliant. You can get your first worker out faster for scouting purposes

Hahaha, too busy to play but that was hilarious.

 

[ben-jammin]

Well, this game was as advertised. It's looking like I'll finish this earlier than my earliest Immortal conquest even.

 

[ben-jammin]

Hahaha, too busy to play but that was hilarious.

let's not sell worker-first short here, it's not just for scouting. Fogbuster, too, oh yes.


cseanny...I did your HA/elephant->GM->cuirassier thing and it's worked like a charm. Now if only I could make it work on any other deity map

 

[cseanny]

cseanny...I did your HA/elephant->GM->cuirassier thing

Yay!! Glad to hear it. Next decent Deity game you roll try an opening tech path of something heading up to Writing > Math!! > few turn into Alpha and trade Math for it > Currency > CoL > Cs > then up Aesthetics > Lit > Music > etc etc.


I've been having some good success with that tech path lately. Math gets you Alpha and other little stuff and then Currency gets you Monarchy, other little stuff and Cash for longer deficit research (great timing with Academy). This normally slows down the AIs tech pace towards Music but seems to speed them up in getting Calander and sometimes MC.

And in most of my games I'm able to get CS/Forge/OR/Bureau in place in the 500 - 400 BC range which gets me MoM 80% of the time while still reaching Music first. Give it a try and see what you think.

 

[vranasm]

Hahaha, too busy to play but that was hilarious.

obviously when you spend so much time with rt 3 now!

 

[pepe26]

What game is rt3? Is it any good?

recap of my first failed attempt:

Spoiler :

I started out wonder whoring just a little bit (TGL, Parthenon, fail gold for Paya and also tried for the Sistine Chapel to keep the culture option available... but soon I had to realize that Gandhi with stone and also marble, I think, would grab way too many wonders to be able to keep up...

Notable events:

1. The AI took foreeeeeever to get Alpha and the only one who had it early was Toku… so I had to gift him a city first before I could pick up Alpha. I didn’t want to self tech it, seems like such a waste…
   
2. There was a well placed barb city at the north-eastern pigs/gold/wheat spot that I intended to war-chariot grab but Pacal the little suck toy leap frogged me... so that left me with only 4 cities, none of which are particularly spectacular. Capital is decent, though, so I figured, I'd try this 4-city lib rush everyone was telling me was so great...
   
3. Unfortunately I got beaten to Music by Gandhi although I was beelining it. Only delay was a short detour was Math for Chops and 3-4 turns put into currency before I decided to rather get Music and build the Chapel. Might have gotten both first otherwise.
   
4. Also I forgot to settle an academy in my capital -.-.-.-.- I'm not sure if I bulbed anything with my first GS or what the frick I was thinking. Went quickly to Philo to switch into Pacifism and CS, so burea was delayed quite a bit.
   
5. Did not succeed in putting anyone into war with each other. Only until very late, I could put Toku up against Gandhi who got dogpiled Bismarck and Hammy. Instead of folding, he held of everyone, took 2-3 Jap-cities and vassaled Hammy! Made peace with Bismarck and Toku and became kinda big but not huge with about 14 cities.
   
6. During that time I had pulled of my rush against Pacal who was also kinda strong tech- and land-wise… took 4 cities as my own incl. his capitol and gifted the rest back to him. His tech pace remained quicker than mine since I went after Toku next, who I also vassaled… Took no cities from Toku, gave them all back. Then geared up for the next war with cannons, grenadiers, cuirs and later rifles and cavs. I did hit and run attacks on cities, so the cannons could do a maximum of collateral damage and had their highest strength. Eventually I couldn’t hold up with Gandhi’s production anymore and Hammy also threw high-tech stuff at me later with artillery and anti-tank stuff while I was still at cavs/rifles/cannons… gave up when I saw 4th or 5th hugh army coming from Ghandi. My whipping potential was close to zero since my war weariness was humongous and oppression unhappiness through the roof on top of emancipation pressure. Had no drafting city in place, had no heroic epic, just a couple of military academies and some settled generals.

Without my mistakes, I would have probably won the game. Might give it another shot or two, unless I want to play the Zara game first that has went up lately.

Still dont know know how to mass up 8 GPs or more, could only get 4-5 GSs and a GM in the mid game (I did misplace my NE tho, so this might be a big problem... should I put it in the capital when I get TGL?)

 

[pepe26]

general mid game thought on the map

Spoiler :

I also tried a quick oracle attempt by the way and picked CoL... unfortunately the trade situation on the map was horrible for this strategy so I started over with no oracle. I almost believe, self teching Alpha will be best here since no one wants to go for Alpha it seem (except Toku of all people -.-)

I think the tech path should be:
Aesth => Alpha => Parthenon => Literature => TGL=> Music => possibly Sistine Chapel (Gandhi with Chapel is kind of a pain in the arse with close borders)

 

[cseanny]

@ Pepe

Spoiler :

This map is not suited for a 4 city game, not at all. To re-iterate some past thoughts on it; you need a lot of food capable of extremely high population and enough health. You need 2 cities capable of running many great people to generate enough gpp's. Each city should be in the 13-18 population range, capable of running around 6-8 (TGL city can run fewer) great people, and TGL and NE should be split up. This will allow each city to generate pretty close to the same gpp's and you alternate great people in each city, so micro-manage things accordingly. MoM and Parthenon are a must from 4 cities.

 

[Izuul]

general mid game thought on the map

Spoiler :

I also tried a quick oracle attempt by the way and picked CoL... unfortunately the trade situation on the map was horrible for this strategy so I started over with no oracle. I almost believe, self teching Alpha will be best here since no one wants to go for Alpha it seem (except Toku of all people -.-)

I think the tech path should be:
Aesth => Alpha => Parthenon => Literature => TGL=> Music => possibly Sistine Chapel (Gandhi with Chapel is kind of a pain in the arse with close borders)

Spoiler :

See the problem there is that you are wasting precious early game beakers on both Aesthetics and Alpha. I think you have just had bad luck here because Alpha went at a very reasonable date in my game, as it almost always does on Deity Pangea. Could you maybe just turn off research and save some gold for a handful of turns until an AI gets Alpha? Perhaps while getting your Academy up and running?

Building the Sistine for FG is good, finishing it is pretty meh unless you plan to play the entire game peacefully. Why fear Gandhi and his Sistine culture when you can go conquer him? He's usually a little wimp.

About the TGL + NE in the capitol from your first post... In my opinion the capitol is a bad place for those if you are running a standard Bureau cap. I wouldn't build TGL in my cap unless i literally had no other option. I like the TGL + NE city to run the two free scientists + 2 additional scientists from the library to get out a couple of scientists before my first golden age. That lets you bulb some combo of Philo and Edu, and then you can wait until right around Lib to trigger your GA. Get out one last scientist at the start of that GA to bulb lib, and then get two fast merchants (or more if possible) to upgrade your units.

Anyway, running those 2 scientists in the Bureau cap the entire time is definitely not ideal since you want that city to grow and work as many good tiles as possible. Two specialists consuming food is counter-productive to that goal.

 

[pepe26]

This little wimp vasseled the strongest (or at least 2nd strongest) techer in my game, while being dog piled by three opponents, took several cities of the Japs and the Germs

In both my attempts, Alpha went at around 800BC or later, I think... Gandhi went to Music AND Calender without Alpha, Pacal went to something big too with no Alpha, no idea what Hammy this idiot did. At the time I had gifted a city to Toku, Germany had Alpha as the 2nd guy only (I was at music and a couple of turns into currency already at that time and I had forgetten the academy! idle GS)

 

[pepe26]

@ Pepe

Spoiler :

This map is not suited for a 4 city game, not at all. To re-iterate some past thoughts on it; you need a lot of food capable of extremely high population and enough health. You need 2 cities capable of running many great people to generate enough gpp's. Each city should be in the 13-18 population range, capable of running around 6-8 (TGL city can run fewer) great people, and TGL and NE should be split up. This will allow each city to generate pretty close to the same gpp's and you alternate great people in each city, so micro-manage things accordingly. MoM and Parthenon are a must from 4 cities.

See, this stuff is exactly what I mean when I talk about the "pros" valueing land way over wonders... land will always be strong for military use or teching (as long as you dont over-expand) but the other strategy requires sooo many prerequisites to fall into place. I couldn't arue that convincingly earlier bt you just did that for me!

 

[Strickl3r]

I finished Domination in 17xx AD

Spoiler :

To bad nobody commented on my save

Lost my second city to barbs btw at the start(reloading is for pussys xd ) and Lib to Ghandi in 540 AD( he was 2 turns faster)

Vassaled Pacal, Toku, then attacked Ghandi.
Ghandi was pain in the ass, since he had at least 5-6 MGs in his citys when i attacked with Cavalary/Canons/Rifles, but i got Assembly Line and Attillery right after that and finished off the German before he got to his unique unit.

 

[ben-jammin]

Pepe, speaking for myself if I go aesthetics and alphabet takes a while to come up for trade, I usually put a turn or two into it and iron working and then turn the science slider off completely (possibly self-teching polytheism if I plan to build literature wonders). This is right around when you'll be building libraries and generating your first GS anyway. It's beneficial to collect gold so you can deficit research once you've got your libraries and academy to multiply the beakers. And you avoid self teching both aesthetics and alphabet, by which time you will probably get very little trade value for them.

Spoiler :

If you grabbed the marble on this map you'd want to get started on the parthenon asap. All the resource-boosted wonders, actually, even ones you don't actually want (leave them at 1 turn to completion and then start building them in another city). By the end of the game I had gotten atl east 2000 fail-gold, even though I successfully finished the parthenon, glib, MoM. I got over 800 fail-gold from the sistine chapel alone (this is a great one, so many hammers and it takes the AI a long time to build it...i was able to build it one-and-a-half times). At some point in my game I was even able to trade very cheaply for stone, which I used to get considerable fail-gold from both the UoS and should have abused even more. I even gave myself a few hundred fail-gold from the national and heroic epics.

 

[pepe26]

ya I get that... but in this game it literally took forever!!!!! until someone had alpha! As you can see, I had enough time to reasearch math, literature, music AND a couple of turns into currency before I could FINALLY trade for alpha with toku/bismarck

 

[brutusrox]

Spoiler :

Simple 2 city WC rush, cut off metals, lure AIs from cities and own. Early 8 cities (1barb) and 10 total workers (6captured). Just got my Academy too.

although ur civ is up an running nicely at a reasonable time, it kinda looks like you have ur work cut out for u diplomaticly right? i mean your border with 3 AIs, two of which are different religions, one of which is protective, and another who his a warring (japan) also protective. am i wrong? how did u play this out? i would cap pacal first then go japan and then hammurabi (just based on what i can see in the picture)

thanks

you might have already commented the answer to this already.... didnt see anything though.

 

[pepe26]

I think the diplo thing will be a cakewalk... just switch into judaism and buddy up with burger king and hamms. pacal needs to go anyway since his teching usually becomes outta control quickly unless taken out or in a long war. afaik germany doesnt care so much about religions and its not te strongest civ anyway, so an attacked should be walled easily

 

[ben-jammin]

Diplo on this map is remarkably easy.

Spoiler :

Two civs have favourite civics that you'll want to be in anyway, no serious warmongers. Neighbours are Gandhi who has the lowest unitprob in the game and is the AI's favourite punching-bag, Toku with lots of room to settle lots of terrible cities away from everybody else, and Pacal who is also generally peaceful and really only a threat for a space victory as he's a very strong techer. In my game there were three different religions adopted as well, further simplifying matters.

 

[ben-jammin]

First Deity win! I was just a few turns short of my fastest immortal victory, 1525 Domination.

Part 1:

Spoiler :

Settled 1NE on the elephants obviously.

Opened AH->mining->BW->pottery->masonry->writing. I'd have opened up with AH regardless of whether I knew there were horses from reading this thread as the pigs are actually the better tile, AH can be ready just in time for the first worker, and the improvement is only 4 turns=6F tile ready earlier than a 5F tile going with say mining first. Horses with a wimp like Gandhi right next door makes the opening strategy too obvious.

Settled 1S of the corn for a truly ideal second city...can work the corn to grow, and then at size 3 was able to alternate between 2-3 turn slowbuilt war chariots and whips when about to grow past the happy cap.

I actually decided to get out a third settler to snag the marble, which I suspected Pacal would take from me while I took on Gandhi if I did the obvious thing and started building WCs after just 1 settler. This city ended up being quite good and with the quarried marble, mined hill and a couple forests to chop it actually contributed 2 or 3 WCs to the effort without even a border pop. It was even better later as I was able to hold onto the gems 2S of the city with just the culture from religion, library, and monument. I thought maybe getting this spot would cripple my WC rush and perhaps end up being fairly useless due to culture pressure but it turned out to be the right play. I knew that getting the marble would accelerate my game a lot, it was responsible for well over 1000 failgold as well as all the wonders I wanted.

Anyway, in 1840 writing is in, borders are opened and I start moving WCs into position while using the first 2 to scout Gandhi. A couple hill cities, which is unfortunate, but in 1560 I have this highly favourable position in which to declare:

You can see that Gandhi has an unprotected worker on the metal he's just improved, a settler about to found a new city with an archer, both of which will wander around until I kill them, and just enough WCs in position to rush to his back cities before he's ready. I declare this turn and take his worker a turn before his fast workers would have allowed him to hook up the bronze, and the next turn I take his first city and start killing archers out in the open.

Now my third city did delay the rush and as such I'm facing a bit more cultural defense. I leave his closest city, which is not that good and on a hill, and am juuuuust barely able to take Delhi with quite a few losses. I've taken 3 cities (Delhi, Bombay, Pataliputra, all very good cities), razed one, and will not be able to hold Delhi next turn with all my near-dead WCs. Conveniently my war success is such that making peace is the best option anyway, because this deal in 875BC is about as good as it gets:

23 war chariots built, 17 lost. Gandhi is left alive, with some awkwardly placed cities that will kind of split my empire in half and give me a lot of culture pressure. But being a peacemonger he opens borders the very next turn, peacevassals later in the game, and is generally not a problem. Very strong opening, especially since the surviving war chariots are sufficient to grab me two really good barb cities and then garrison for happiness.

 

[ben-jammin]

Part 2:

Spoiler :

With the early rush concluded I rush out workers and 4 more settlers on top of the 2 barb cities I take. This secures me a lot of good land, a whole pile of happiness resources, and most importantly Iron. First GS is used for an academy in the capital, which is already cottages with overlapping cities helping to grow the commerce. Went for music and won the GA, who was stockpiled for the right moment.

With the marble I am able to snag the Parthenon, TGLib, and MoM in that order, and I also get a sh____________t ton of fail gold from the Sistine Chapel (at least 700 if my memory serves). Built the NE in the capital (where I built the GLib for obvious synergy) and the HE in Bombay after prebuilding both for marble-boosted failgold. At some point I was also able to make a trade for stone with Hammy very cheaply, which allowed me to pre-build the University of Sankore in two cities for another huge return. Shwadegon Paya was also nearly completed for failgold.

All this gold happened to come just in time for the rush to Lib. GA was used for a twelve turn golden age. The switch to Hindusim/Pacifism was made and the capital started pumping out the points. Aside from the first one that built the Academy, I bulbed philosophy, 1x education, 1x liberalism, and 2x printing press. Two Great Merchants were also sent to the ToA for upgrade gold. With philo bulbed long before anybody else was there, Lib was never in question so it was a no-brainer to bribe Hammy on Toku for an extra sweet protective-on-protective suicide-fest that kept them both busy for a good hundred turns.

Lib'ed Military Tradition of course and had a stack of pre-built Elephants and Horse Archers ready a la cseanny. So it looks like this in 960AD:

Notice that he's built a very valuable shrine the same turn I'll declare war How considerate. Pacal is the obvious first target because a) he is a wimp who caps easily and doesnt stockpile a ton of units b) he is the only neighbour not kept busy with fruitless warbribes and c) he is a top-tier techer and would undoubtedly reach rifling before any of the others.

He bribes Bismark on me, who eventually manages to get a small handful of units to me. This is excellent...I kill his units and he gives me gold for peace. I also manage to cheaply bribe Charlie against Hammy/Gandhi, then if I recall Bismark declared on Charlie just to even things out

From there it's essentially a chain-cap while I make my way through replaceable parts and rifling. Charlie is next because his stack is out in the open attacking Hammy, and also because he is a huge problem once he reaches rifling and upgrades all his CG/drill units. Then it's Bismark because, well, my units are already there and everybody else is at war. At this point rifling is in and I have enough gold to upgrade almost my entire stack to cavalry in time to declare on Hammy/Gandhi. Gandhi only had four cities, which i took within 3 turns to make his master Hammy vassal immediately. Gandhi dead, Pacal+Charlie+Bismark+Hammy vassaled, and only Toku left.

Unfortunately Toku has beelined steel and has a toooon of CG/drill unit from his long war against Hammy/Gandhi. On the plus side, Hammy was attacking one of Toku's cities right along my borders until the very turn I was able to get a big stack of cavalry in place. I take the opportunity to attack at 40% cultural defense instead of 85% and poach a bunch of Tokus units out in the open. Just a couple turns later Toku offers me this:

This could not have come at a better time. It saves me a couple turns on steel (which none of my vassals had yet), and buys me time because Toku now has railroad and has started to upgrade a bunch of machineguns. Over the next 10 turns I manage to have my vassals research scientific method, physics, military science, electricity, communism and biology. All of which I am able to trade/broker amongst them. On the first turn I am able to cancel the peace treaty with Toku I have -50% spies plus two stacks of cannons in place as well as 8 airships and about 75 cavalry. It doesnt take long, just 3 turns:

Stats sorted by units produced, buildings and improvements:

6 great scientists, 2 great merchants, 25 cannons, and about 100 cuirs/cav.

Stats sorted by units killed:

Somewhere around 300 units killed for 60 lost including the opening rush which accounted for 17 of those losses. Never faced rifles or even cuirs, and Toku's cannons did not have the chance to attack me once.

 

[Izuul]

I forgot (possibly was never aware) settling on Ivory gives a 2f,2h city tile. Sometimes I'm definitely still a noob.