[BTS] Help me beat Deity

[Gumbolt]

Okay maybe forest can tile can work. Still need to make that slavery switch. Also have a tech decision in 6T. Likely writing or maybe sailing if we want LH. See how next 6 turns go.

In any case I played on.
We have wheat city secure and it has land locked 2 AI archers down there.
Barb city has appeared on cow/corn site. Barb archer is lurking within barb city borders. I pulled back the warrior. Losing 2 gold a turn on 100% science.

New city looks like worker for now.

We badly need some health here but that should be fixed when settler built.

Oh we met the Germans. Don't mind that!

 

[Gumbolt]

So settler 1 turn.
Then switch back to WB 2 turns.

New city - Worker. Otherwise painful 1h a turn into warrior. Likely now not so important?

To the south will likely be well fogbusted by AI archers.

So what to do with worker next. Part of me thinks cottage and wait for copper city. Maybe we can capture a barb city with 1-2 axes and some AI help?

Any reason not to go writing and OB next?

Ottoman and Germans boasting of their archers. Should I be worried? ho ho ho. Oh dear!

 

[Swordnboard]

Maybe we can capture a barb city with 1-2 axes and some AI help?

Yeah, that's quite possible. They often whittle down the city slowly rather than bringing large stacks. Especially nice that the corn/cow site went barbarian, I thought Boudica would take that for sure.

Settler micro looks better to me if we just finish the WB this turn, can still 2 whip the settler just later on (I wasn't really counting on unhealthiness before).

Cottage and wait for copper site is fine for the worker. We could also put a chop in again (actually for the settler this time). An alternative would be to send worker over to akkad (farm wheat + cottages). If we settle a city on the copper, it will be connected on T51 when Babylon expands borders again. At the same time copper is a bit of a nice tile to waste settling on.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think Fippy suggested 1NW of copper which could also work some cottages too. Hugs the river nicely.

The health issue matters as when we hit S4 we will have 2 unhealthy faces. So this would slow settler.

So 27H towards workboat. 4OF towards settler. We can switch to a Clams next turn.

Worker wise. 3 turns to reach the wheat for +1F and 1H compared to flood plains food?
1 turn to reach flood plains and cottage. . 3H vs 5H tile to help build worker.

So if we grow city 2 for 7 turns. It would reach 30H for whip sooner?

Of course then we have 2 workers in one location with more turns required to return to the capital? Hmmm. I think 2nd worker should arrive 2 turns sooner.

Think I will sleep on this. 2 workers near second city could be over kill. At some point we need to work on trade routes with our capital. Need to move that warrior north. I have a busy day tomorrow. Not sure what time I will have for this in next 48 hours. See what time I have Sunday evening.

 

[krikav]

I last played 6 years ago, started again recently. Never played much diety but I decided I could give this one a try as well!

Spoiler Gameplay :

Tech: Pottery -> Mining -> BW -> Fishing -> Sailing -> Masonry -> Writing
Buildorder: Worker->Granary->Warrior->Settler->WB
Worker: Cottage 1E of Cap -> Cottage 1N of Cap -> Mine the naked plains hill.

Settled the chokepoint toward baudica to secure that peninsula, had not that much fear of someone comming from the jungle.

GLH at turn 68, thats abit late for diety I guess?

 

[Swordnboard]

@krikav might want to put all of that in a spoiler tag. Gumbo isn't quite there in his game yet.

Spoiler few comments on Krikav's game :

Your opening tech path probably leads to a slower opening than it needs to: pottery does provide commerce, but as far as productivity is concerned cottages aren't any better than unimproved floodplains. T68 GLH is risky, but not necessarily too late. You just are in a position now where you have a lot of trouble getting benefit out of it, since you only have 2 cities and no islands in sight. Perhaps a bit stronger focus on expansion is warranted, Boudica has you boxed in really badly.

 

[Gumbolt]

On retro spect I think getting the wheat up is the better plan. Otherwise were waiting 4 more turns after the settler for a 5 yield tile to come online. Probably outweighs the 2 turn delay. The 1 commerce gain from a cottage is marginal.

So next decision is grow vs whip. Growing allows 7 hammers into something. Would we whip the 2nd workboat from a second city? Frees up the capital for other builds albeit unhappiness might stack.

 

[Gumbolt]

Slowly moving on.

Okay settler for 3rd city out. 1NW of copper.
Started writing. Was 50/50 on sailing. Would of got me trade routes with capital. Writing is useful for OB anyway.

Will switch to worker in second city at size 2.

Capital. Hammers to granary or settler? We will want a 4th city here. Need to grow back to size 4. Need to also manage the whip anger.

Celts rather slow at expanding here.

 

[Fippy]

Yep 1nw of copper still good imo, and your warrior should probably move down (after settled) and look what's around the cows se of Cap.

With cheaper barracks and agg we will want some Axes even if barbs are no danger, they can grab barb cities (if lucky).

I would whip granary into library in Cap (and wait with another settler), no pressure for spots anymore?
Then settler into library, with faster re-growth.

 

[Gumbolt]

Will try and look at game tomorrow.

 

[krikav]

Gumbolt, if you feel like I hijack your thread, I can break this out and make a own thread with it. But I assume that you just like this. If you are still playing this game I would love to get a update from you as well!

I played this opening, but decided to have another go at it, Hammurabi is one of my favourites.
I have not yet beat deity, only been playing immortal and I'm not at all used to the different pace. (Lower difficulty games can also throw me of balance completly)

Attached two saves, the buffy005 I played. And I also did a WB save and started that game with no mods to get a clean save. However that did reset culture and research and alot of different things.
Is this the usual way to do it, or is there better ways to share saves? Can I run buffy in custom assets like I have heard one should do with bug?

Spoiler To T196 :

I have done reloading first once when I got dogpiled early in the game.
And also when I started to build macemen during the period before reaching military tradition, such that I had way to little population to effectivly whip cuirs. The macemen did not do well. I had abit more luck against Bismark but I had no way forward after that.

Opening techs: Min->BW->Fish->Pottery
Had little problems with barbarians. Diplomacy went like a breeze. Both Boudica and Peter started to love me. Everyone hated Bismark.
I think I had alot of luck with tech tradings, because I was quite ahead of the pack for a long time, although Justantin techs like a madman.

Boudica and Peter was up against Bismark and it ended with Peter getting Hamburg and I think I bought him of Bismarks back after that, so that I had time to get the rest of his cities with my cuirs which got upgraded to Cavalery to get the last city.
After that war, I paid a hefty sum to get Mehmed to attack Joao, Peter decided to join in on the fun shortly after (Or Joao bribed him?)
And once I had my cavalery in position I too declared on Mehmed and took a few cities (Lost one back due to clumsyness). I got a ceasefire once I saw Mehmeds SOD close.
I was hoping he would march away with that stack, but apparantly he likes to have it stationed at the capital while Peter gobble up his cities in the west.

I'm a few turns away from communism which still has some trading value, but I'm not super keen on getting corporations yet since I have GLH in Berlin. (I probably should though, with ORG factories are really nice).

I lost the horses and didn't want to pay up to get them from Joao, so I have now started (somewhat carefully) to draft and whip rifles and cannons.
Against Mehmed my units are great and I think I can redeclare in 5-10 turns and get a few more cities from him, but it's more likely he will become vassal to Joao or Peter soon.

In my normal Imm games, I almost always have a tech advantage or at least parity. However if I want to go for domination now it seems that I will have to play as an underdog against Joao and Justantin. Not sure how to handle that.
I think it's probably safe not to backstab Boudi or Peter, since they are friendly (I do need to switch from Nationalism to Bur to get friendly again with Peter though. And I can use them as trading partners, or rely on them for a diplomacy victory.

I feel like I'm doing quite good, but I'm not sure.
The rate at which the AI techs is scary, and likewise is it's capacity for unit spamming.

 

[Gumbolt]

I do need to continue this. Had a busy few weeks. Months! Ack!!

Up to 1840bc. Granary whipped in capital.
Whipped workboat and worker in 2nd city.
Third city building granary.
Worker lost a few turns travelling.

Made a mistake with warrior thinking Ottoman archer would not move protecting my warrior. Naturally he moved. Barb city has 2 defenders now. Need to get out axes quickly. Maybe 1-2 chops to help this.

 

[krikav]

I do need to continue this. Had a busy few weeks. Months! Ack!!

Up to 1840bc. Granary whipped in capital.
Whipped workboat and worker in 2nd city.
Third city building granary.
Worker lost a few turns travelling.

Made a mistake with warrior thinking Ottoman archer would not move protecting my warrior. Naturally he moved. Barb city has 2 defenders now. Need to get out axes quickly. Maybe 1-2 chops to help this.

Oh, you have a barb city at that location.
Yes, that needs to be captured asap. I think I would feel it so urgent so that I would 1pop whip axes as soon as possible, even before granaries.

In the save I don't see EPs assigned.
What do you think about sailing...? I would want to trade for it, but it would be really annoying upon reaching aestethics and noone to trade with.
With OB it's instant +3 commerce. And ORG Lighthouses are nice.

In my game, I settled that barb city location as second city, and after pottery I went AH for the cow, and then myst because I was paranoid about losing the corn in that city due to cultural pressure.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yes I almost went sailing. One of the reason I am 100% tax. Another reason to pause. Yes capturing that city is a must! Granary is only a place build.

My thoughts would be to chop forest and whip axes where possible. I figure I need 4 or so. I was hoping to use capital for library.

Worker use is something that needs more thought. Early cottages here are not great?

 

[krikav]

In august, I did play the opening and went for GLH.
In that play, I did go pottery very early (first?). Totally illogical, since if you have GLH cottages are less critical, and if you have good cottage possibilities then GLH is ackward.
Boudi also got the cow/corn-site, and that looks like a nightmare.
I felt cramped even when I had that site this time around.

But even when I played now, I did prioritize getting cottages up and running quite early. I had 2 done in the capital at 1760 (Turn 56). I only had one clam improved.
Looking at the capital, I do think that it calls for loads of cottages. In my game the only floodplain I didn't cottage was the one that only the copper city had, all tiles that the capital could reach was cottaged.
Now... I'm not sure how well this game really went thus far, and I don't know if it was the right play.
I had the feeling that I was abit low in production/whipping potential.

Looking at your game only, I would let everything slip untill I had that barb city under my control.
A 2pop whip on the capital library before turning the slider is very tempting imho, but I don't think it would be worth the risk. Chopping could also be to slow.

 

[krikav]

No, apparantly I can't win this.

Spoiler Loss :

I exterminated peter at 1785, having a wast empire.
I have tried a couple of different approaches from this point, but I can't see any way to stop Justantin from winning space race in time.
I guess you have to be quicker and better to have a chance.

 

[krikav]

I replayed this map once again and now I have at last achieved my very first Diety victory!
1590Domination
Attached a few saves (Buffy005).

Spoiler :

I settled abit more aggresively, resulting in me getting the two small islands toward boudi.
I abandoned dreams of trading horses and instead focused on getting to cannons.

Did a double bulb on chemistry, and managed to get good trades although I was more reserved with trading away techs.
Got steel from liberalism at turn 146 (720AD). And I had a monopoly on steel for most of the rest of the game.
Built some musketmen to clean up after cannons, and once steel was in I whipped alot of cannons.
Waited until I had military science and a couple of grenadiers untill I declared on Mehmed.
I also build a couple of pikemen, since they where cheaper and defended just as great against knights. The idea was also to promote these to CR3 and then upgrade them.
I did this, but with the cannons, the CR bonus really didn't come into play much.

I paid much attention to the XP to the cannons, trying to get as many as possible to CR3, something that made a jump in survival rate from 45% to 90+% in some cases!

Declared on Memed Turn158 and he capitulated T191.
Joao declare T198, cap T210.
Justantin declare T213, cap T220.
If I had taken 1 more city from justantin, that would probably gotten the victory there.
Now I had to take a pair of cities from Boudi to secure 64%.

Didn't run a single GA in the entire game, once I had cannons and grenadiers I teched at a snails pace toward rifles, and at that time I didn't tech more and most of my empire except a few key cities got to a sorry state with frequent 4->2 pop whip cycles and being drafted if they ever managed to get to pop6.

I have learned that it's very important to be restrictive with what to trade with the AI, giving away too much tech to quickly just speeds up their runaway process.
I have learned that cannons are incredibly overpowered if one manages to get them early enough.
It's very important to pay attention to promotions and XP, and not losing alot of units.

Screenshots:
Steel at 720AD.

Victory:

 

[Gumbolt]

Sorry this has been on a slow burner.

Up to 4 cities.
Sailing teched.
Library whipped. Slow built axe from capital with OF help.
Chopped one axe and part built in copper city.
Archer attacked one of my axes hence 1.5. I attacked with other 2 and took the city.
Barb city captured.86 gold from capture. Size 3.

Ready to whip another settler. I think I need a 3rd worker somewhere too. Whip Akkad in 3 turns for a worker? Hmmm.

Need to start working some cottages here.

Germans demanded clams. So I gave them clams.

 

[Gumbolt]

Any further advice? More cities?

 

[Swordnboard]

I don't see any convincing city spots, really. Cows and sheep would both be OK, but no real forests to speak of or commerce potential for either of them.

Russia, Celts, and Ottomans all bragged about chariots when I talked to them (meaning they don't yet have metal). Another confirmation is that they all want copper on the trade screen. Not sure if they have IW but no iron, or if they'll hook up iron in the next few turns, but this means we do have the possibility of an axe-rush. Generally these next 15-20 turns or so are an ideal time to rush, because the AI aren't quite done expanding so they keep spreading their army thinner and thinner. I'd be inclined to try, maybe put together a stack of 8-10 axes. Also, peter and bismarck are both able to be bribed on each other, so if somebody comes up with alpha we can probably use aesthetics to create chaos/opportunities.

Construction rush is another possibility, but no ivory and many turns before we could possibly reach it make that less attractive.