Help! My reputation's trashed on deity in the ancient age!

[Renata]

Well, actually it's the very early middle ages, but ancient sounded more impressive.

Anyway, this is the first solo deity start I've played past about 2000 BC. (I have another game started as well, but I'm boxed in by the endless mountains and the jungle, and so I decided to save that one for later! ) I was keeping up just fine in tech in the ancient age, but now all of a sudden I'm unable to buy monotheism at 3rd civ prices (this is a standard map with 8 civs) with >250 gp and ~ 40 gpt available to pay for it.

First off: 250+40*20 = 1050g; monotheism shouldn't cost that much right? I'm 99% sure it doesn't, just want a reality check here if someone could provide it.

So assuming that is in fact enough money to buy monotheism, the only conclusion I can come to is I must somehow have trashed my rep. I don't know *how*, exactly, but that's not my current issue. [edit: figured it out --- see below] What I'm asking is, can any deity veterans give me any suggestions on how to get by at this point in a deity game with no gpt-for-tech option? The game is going so well in every other respect that I'd hate to give up on it as a hopeless job now.

Renata

[I had a deal going with Korea, at the opposite end of my landmass, with India, Japan and China in between. Japan had managed to get a city in my first ring, and I declared war to take it. I had checked that I had a clear harbor-to-harbor trade route with Korea, which I did, up one coast, but I just remembered that the turn I made peace with Japan, I saw a Japanese galley coming down that very same coast. That must've broken the trade route, and hence trashed my rep. *sigh* ]

 

[Sirp]

Well, what does your advisor say when you put down the offer? If your reputation is trashed, then the pattern you will see is that as long as you put down lump sum payments of gold, he will say that they "they will probably be insulted by this deal", or "I doubt they will accept this proposal", or "We're getting close to a deal here", but as soon as you put down gpt on your side of the table, he will say "They would never accept such a deal". If he keeps saying one of the first three responses when you have gpt on the table, then your reputation is not trashed, and you're just not offering enough for the tech.

You can also try actually offering the deal and see how they respond. Often that lets you know if it's just not a good enough offer, or if you actually did something that makes it unacceptable.

As for surviving with a trashed reputation, well, it's difficult. Since you can buy something @3rd, I assume that you're not far behind in the tech race. That's good, it makes it much easier. The main thing you have to note is that you'll need much larger sums of gold in your treasury than normal, so you can pay for things up front. The biggest use for gpt is to give you the buying power when needed to make a brokerage deal when the opportunity arises. If you can't make gpt deals, you have to do everything lump sum. You might have to have the confidence to let yourself fall behind a little, while you build up a big enough treasury to make some deals, and catch back up.

Also, with a trashed reputation you can't sell luxuries or strategic resources to other civs in exchange for something up front, such as a tech. That means it's important to try to lock in gpt deals for your resources, so they can help build up your treasury.

It's substantially harder to make trades with a trashed reputation, but can be managed, so long as your position isn't too weak.

In Epic 26, I had my reputation trashed fairly early, around the same time as in your game, but still managed to maneuver myself to a victory. See the report on my homepage, although it doesn't go into many details about the stain on my reputation. Then again, I was already in a strong position before the stain; if you're not in a reasonably good position already, it can make it very very difficult.

-Sirp.

 

[Renata]

It's definitely a rep problem; I went back and checked and couldn't sell the furs I just hooked up for 1 gp.

Anyway, I'm in a reasonably strong position, with a few caveats.

One: I have no iron. But there's a source one town away from my borders, and it belongs to the weakest civ in the game (China). I'm in the process of building up a stash of horses to go take it away from them.

Two: I am critically short of luxes. I have a decent-size territory for deity thanks to having had a nice backyard to my south to grow into while the AIs were all throwing warriors at each other(okay, so three of my cities are in tundra, but anyway). Despite that, though, all I have is three furs tiles; in fact, the whole southern half of my five-civ continent has nothing but furs. I just plopped down a city in an open area on the other continent next to a wines source, but I can't hook it up until I have astronomy. I'm going to need higher lux taxes than optimal.

Three: I'm still a little short of what I'd like for land area. The good news that goes with this is that China's land would round things out nicely; the only issue is that it'll take a while to get it. (Pile up enough money to buy feudalism @darn-near-last, go get the iron source, build/upgrade MIs, go get the territory etc etc.)

The positives are:

One: As I said, the land area is really not bad for this point in the game, and it contains some good territory (rivers, some bonus food, coast, pretty good shields).

Two: I have two furs and (if I bypass chivalry in favor of MIs) two horses to sell. And I have buyers on my own continent for all of that.

Three: I'm a Republic at 170 BC, making 40gpt, with my FP due in 6 turns.

Four: I have only one land border to defend, and until after I deal with China, it's not very long.

Five: The tech situation is not yet dire: one AI civ has engineering, two have monotheism, and all but two have feudalism up on me. Those last two have monarchy, which I'm not really counting. (Which is why my inability to broker right now is so frustrating!)

Anyway, I'll definitely keep at it. Thanks for the advice.

Renata

 

[Belisar]

Originally posted by Renata

First off: 250+40*20 = 1050g; monotheism shouldn't cost that much right?

One interesting detail: I'm not 100% sure on that but as far as i know gpt is not considered equal to 20* lump sum, the factor is lower. It seems, that for the AI 'money now' is woth more than 'money later'.

About the trashed reputation: This happened to me not only once (well, not in the ancient age...). I always tried it (with different outcomes ) the military way, before i would fall too far behind in tech. But a strong economy (lump sums for tech) is probably a good alternative strategy.

 

[anarres]

Don't worry if your rep is trashed! Just save up cash and get techs that way. On Deity I always collect gold until at least the medieval ages, sometimes up to industrial.

Another way to get techs for GPT when your rep is trashed is to get it as part of a peace deal. For some reason in one of my current games I have no rep yet when I make peace I can put GPT on the table and ask for techs, I presume this is normal behaviour.

 

[Txurce]

Anarres, that is normal behavior (and probably a mistake). If you have gpt available, you can always tack on a mediocre trade deal with the enemy. This can verge on the exploitive, since if you have already trashed your rep, what's to stop you from welshing on the gpt deal? You can do them over and over again, no matter how execrable your rep.

Renata, something along these lines may be a good idea for you. Take China's iron before they build riders, and secure a peace with gpt deals. Then go back and take the rest of their land in as many bites as you want, making gpt deals each time.

 

[Renata]

Thanks, I'll try to do something like that. At the moment the only tech they have up on me is monarchy, though, so I'll have to hope they get another tech or two before I get that far.

Renata

 

[DaveMcW]

Like anarres said, you lost about 17 turns (the AI's loan rate is 17:20) of research by trashing your rep. You can still catch up in techs by paying gpt to your treasury, it will just take longer.