homeyg and Deity
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SnowlyWhite
Emperor
cash for upgrade will be dubious; but I guess it's the best you could take out of that start... anyway, much better then I could hope of
iamnleth
Warlord
Why take any risk? I have all the AIs where I want them, fighting the wars I want to be fought. In a way, all military on the map is my military
You mean to say that you bribed the AIs to war so they wouldn't attack you? As I see it, if you just had those empty cities laying around, any aggressive AI with a hungry stack would eat them up in an instant.
Unconquered Sun
Emperor
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Next step in formulating my strategy (say theory is step 0 and reading the map step 1) is answering the above statements.
1) to be competitive while pressed for land and with few cities I need
- strong economy
- stong culture
2) I need the warmongers occupied, ideally fighting the unchecked peripheral peacemongers
strong economy = high sustainable research and the ability to build massive army when the time comes (supposedly in med/rene when Izzy is strong)
strong culture = self-evident
warmongers fighting what I want them = expensive bribes (read multiple techs to give away, as early as possible)
These are my goals. Finally, step three of formulating strategy: how to achieve my goals. Before moving on, let me ask you what are your thoughts on the game when you look at it from this point of view?
My first thought was "I've been doing it all wrong from the beginning!" I never came up with a big picture, goals, or anything. I guess it's kind of hard to follow through with a strategy that doesn't exist.. 
Emperor must be the last level where this lack of strategy is not detrimental to winning.
Emperor must be the last level where this lack of strategy is not detrimental to winning.
Unconquered Sun
Emperor
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I mean to say I paid for each and every war in the game, sometimes giving the AIs five techs apiece, and sometimes paying for a new war the turn the last one ended. That would be obvious in the diplomacy screen penalties. AIs never declare while in war, so I can have as many empty cities as I want and not bother with building and maintaining an army before the time is right.
Unconquered Sun
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I'm positive I can replay the same strategy even better, but so far it's good enough. I have a shot at conquering the likes of GK, Shaka, and Mao. Of course, there are many ways I could lose this one still.
Unconquered Sun
Emperor
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My first thought was "I've been doing it all wrong from the beginning!" I never came up with a big picture, goals, or anything. I guess it's kind of hard to follow through with a strategy that doesn't exist..
Emperor must be the last level where this lack of strategy is not detrimental to winning.
Wanna give it a try? Share what worked out for you and what didn't.
iamnleth
Warlord
Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean... you mean you bribed them with techs to maintain good diplomacy or you actually had to give them techs for peace because they declared on you? I can't see how it could be the latter without you losing cities.
Also, my primary concern for your position now is the lack of production.
Unconquered Sun
Emperor
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Neither.
I gave them techs for declaring on other AIs.
I incurred diplo penalties for that, once from the civ that got declared and then occasionally for refusing to join the war on either side.
Why take any risk? I have all the AIs where I want them, fighting the wars I want to be fought. In a way, all military on the map is my military
Yes, I saw your bribes when checking the diplo in your save. Still with the neighbours we got in this game I didn't dare to risk it. Your diplo situation with other AI's isn't "that" good to prevent a backstab imho. (If we can talk about a "backstab" if we're talking about catious AI's.
)Not trying to put you down though, I just found it weird you had so few units.
----
Anyways played a couple of turns more till 1580 AD. Since I had only two trebs left, it would be hard to grab another city but I decided to follow Mao's sod after healing my units. Shaka dow's on Augustus as well. Ravenna had 18 riffles and 4 grens, Impossible to take with just 2 trebs and my conqui army. So I just camp on a hill next to it and let Mao do the hard work.
Mao's sod dies, what an idiot. But Shaka got his sod to Ravenna as well. So I'm just waiting for him to weaken the defenders. Shaka fails to take the city, leaving 8 wounded riffles left. I take it easy (I lost my best conqui with 97% chance to win.
)In the meanwhile Bull is smacking Genghis around with cavs and I can't bribe him to peace. VERY annoying and nothing I can do about it, Genghis loses some of his border cities with me so now I got Bull as my new neighbour and Genghis as his vassal. Not good .. not good at all. I switched a lot of civics and started growing my cities again and working cottages. I'm still far behind Zara and Bull, I hope I can grab the last two Roman cities and catch up a bit. I "hope" Zara and Bull start warring with each other. Genghis was Zara's worst enemy and since he's a vassal of Bull now. That would be just perfect. On the other hand Bull just lost an enemy, he might come after me next. If that happens .. I might have to resign. Maybe an idea is to get shaka declare on Bull and me backstabbing shaka for diplo+cities. But that would just delay the problem, since after shaka is gone I'm bulls enemy number one. Another thing I can think about is getting Mao to warring, I can't trade with him anyways and it would be great to stir some troubles to keep bull or zara bussy.
ps: Augustus pillaged my clams.
Spoiler :
I'm not quite sure what to make out of Rome btw. It has quite a lot of hills so it would be a nice prod city. On the other hand those two gold resources and rivers ask for a prod/com hybrid with farms and cottages mixed up.
edit: Or I could maker it a prod/gp hybrid with the wonders that are present there.
I would just make it into a cottage/production city, give your economy a little boost.
Alright, time for an update in my game. I've whipped a couple key buildings in all cities (namely university to keep my science and culture up a little, walls, our unique building, the Citadel, for treb experience points and stables) and now I'm doing a strict military build up. Right now I have a stack of 14-15 CRIII trebs, and I'm working on building my conquistadors. I've fallen way behind in tech compared to Zara and Rome, but I think it's okay. I think I'm going to build up big enough to declare on Rome and get Shaka's help (since Shaka hates Augustus), and take enough cities to get a bunch of tech's for peace, and then if he's still ahead, lather, rinse, and repeat. Then I'll move onto the next AI, which is probably going to be either Genghis, or Mao. Mao would be more valuable because he is ahead in techs and I could get techs in peace treaty. Genghis is still falling behind, and he is also a vassal of Zara and I don't wanna deal with that yet.
I think what I've done wrong in my game so far is taking too much leisure time to build important buildings in the cities. I should have whipped and farmed alot more than I did. Instead I tried to sneak in a few cottages early on, and I think this may have set me back a little bit. I think this was my key mistake (I'm not sure if I'm right though). Another key mistake was, like I already said, I didn't strategize. I didn't really know where I wanted the game to go from the beginning. I think that is my problem with civ: sometimes I play like a mindless drone and just expect to win when the games over. I can't sit around and have that happen, I have to win.
Anyway, here's my screeny. I'm definitely going to be playing further tonight.
Spoiler :
ABigCivFan
Emperor
@homeyg
send a knight/scout to AC's city check out what kind of defenses he has. Also set high EPs on him. It does not look very promising for:
1. His score doubles yours
2. His workers have better uniform than yours (1 era ahead of you)
send a knight/scout to AC's city check out what kind of defenses he has. Also set high EPs on him. It does not look very promising for:
1. His score doubles yours
2. His workers have better uniform than yours (1 era ahead of you)
Well, he had machine guns by the time I finished building my stack. This may not work out. Also, a couple infantry are appearing in his cities. I may have to take Genghis's cities instead and deal with a war against Zara..
EDIT: Yeah this is not looking good..
Great thread guys - I haven't even tried to tackle Deity yet so kudos to all of you. One of the things that jumped out at me in comparing your screenshots is the teching rate comparison (I picked ones where you were all running 100% science):
HomeyG - 660 AD - 89 science/turn
BurN - 1460 AD - 204 science/turn
USun - 600 AD - 259 science/turn
One of the things that amazed me in the Justinian University thread and also here (not to mention his ability to manipulate diplomacy with the AI's) is USun's commitment to teching no matter what else is going on. I think I saw one point in HomeyG's game where you were only pulling in 4 science/turn with the science rate at 0. My guess without loading the save is that USun would be pulling in closer to 100 science per turn with the slider at 0.
In most successful upper level games I've seen, there's an early commitment to a library in the capital and then running at least 2 science specialists from that point on. Especially if you don't have a large empire with a huge cottage economy, those specialists will often provide the bulk of your research in addition to creating the massive numbers of GP's necessary to leap ahead. A few settled GS in the capital along with an academy/library/university in between using them for bulbs, and you're soon sitting on a nice little research pool that is always there no matter what's going on with your economy.
I'm not trying to criticize anyone, I've found myself in the same low teching spiral many times because I feel like I have to push out military units due to being behind in tech just to keep from getting overrun, but that always results in wars being fought where I'm using Longbows against Riflemen or Rifles against Infantry - a losing proposition.
Just an observation that I had and one that I've been working hard to emulate in my offline games. Maintaining tech parity at least in one line is crucial for most diplomacy and other strategies unless you have the military might to simply overpower everyone - which will almost never occur on Deity.
HomeyG - 660 AD - 89 science/turn
BurN - 1460 AD - 204 science/turn
USun - 600 AD - 259 science/turn
One of the things that amazed me in the Justinian University thread and also here (not to mention his ability to manipulate diplomacy with the AI's) is USun's commitment to teching no matter what else is going on. I think I saw one point in HomeyG's game where you were only pulling in 4 science/turn with the science rate at 0. My guess without loading the save is that USun would be pulling in closer to 100 science per turn with the slider at 0.
In most successful upper level games I've seen, there's an early commitment to a library in the capital and then running at least 2 science specialists from that point on. Especially if you don't have a large empire with a huge cottage economy, those specialists will often provide the bulk of your research in addition to creating the massive numbers of GP's necessary to leap ahead. A few settled GS in the capital along with an academy/library/university in between using them for bulbs, and you're soon sitting on a nice little research pool that is always there no matter what's going on with your economy.
I'm not trying to criticize anyone, I've found myself in the same low teching spiral many times because I feel like I have to push out military units due to being behind in tech just to keep from getting overrun, but that always results in wars being fought where I'm using Longbows against Riflemen or Rifles against Infantry - a losing proposition.
Just an observation that I had and one that I've been working hard to emulate in my offline games. Maintaining tech parity at least in one line is crucial for most diplomacy and other strategies unless you have the military might to simply overpower everyone - which will almost never occur on Deity.
iamnleth
Warlord
U Sun, don't you worry that the AIs will spot those empty cities and decide that they can handle two wars?
Unconquered Sun
Emperor
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Impossible under the current AI code. I had no worries with my game, in fact most of it I only had 1 warrior in capital.
Squarg
Awesomesauce
I have a suggestion for you: try researching 0%/100%. What I mean is if you want to run 70% research go 7 turns 100% 3 turns 0%, you get so much more out of the multiplier buildings its not even funny. I may jump in and try this too.
Actually you don't get more out of multiplier building save for running the bank up when building science multipliers and running it down while building cash multipliers. You do get 1+ free beaker from rounding though which can be huge in the early game.
