How is this possible and what can I learn or do out of this?

[Seraiel]

Hi

Atm. I'm playing a Deity 17 Civs Huge Big & Small with small Islands, low sealvl and tropical climate as I wanted to see, what score I could achieve. Got a decent starting location with 2 Gold and 1 Food next to a river. I settled on one of the Golds to get extra commerce and decided I wanted to found Hinduism, as the starting location was no good for a GP farm, having only 1 food, so 2nd city had to be. Founding Hinduism just gives me a little more time on finding this sort of city, and I got lucky, as Cyrus had a quadruple Food one next to the same river, which is an ultimate river of doom, as it reaches almost anyone, as you can see on the screens attached.

Conquered it, founded Hinduism in it and built roads with the stolen worker connecting to another river so Religion could spread. As I settled on the rivergold and worked the other rivergold Hinduism was found at the same time Buddhism was, things looked really well. De Gaulle was next, as he had I nice City with lots of Floodplaines and Situation was good, as he built a farm with 3 workers, which I captured all at once bringing me up to 4 Workers. Conquered him completetely before 3000 BC (which is very early) and got a 5th worker and a 3rd capital city from him (1st capital being my own city).

Till that point, I had already met most of the 17 civs, so I noticed nearly anyone had started next to me, and space would be the ultimate problem this round, so I went for the 3rd target, which could have been Hannibal or Peter at that time. Decided for Peter, as Hannibal had Slavery and was non spyable by my units. Peters Cities seemed ok and low on defense (only 2 Archers per City) so he fell before 2500 BC bringing me up to 4 capital Cities, even more workers, decent land and the decision to go for him was right, as Hannibal showed up with Charriots few turns after I would have attacked him.

Now that was it for being lucky, here is what happened next: Elizabeth, the one who founded Buddhism, got ultimately lucky, as it spread TO EVERY SINGLE CIV except Hannibal! (see Screen, how is this possible, if Religions were founded at the same time, and my City sitting next to an ultimate river of doom?)

Judaism was founded very late after 2000 BC, and by that time, everyone except Hannibal, who is Hinduist was already Buddhist, so it would have no effect at all! (Never saw that happen. Normally, Judaism gets one of the main Religions in my games, as that Civ is the first to have organized Religion and can build the most Missionaries at the time open Borders show up.)

Of course I went Buddhist after it had spread to one of my cities, as 3 of 4 of my neighbours were Buddhist and rest of the world being also Buddhists. I was first to have Alpha as I oracled it and even got SH, so GP would be quite early, problem being, only my own cities have gotten Hinduism till now. Profits will be enormously low from it, being a 10% world Religion in contrast to Buddhism which present is in over 50% of the worlds cities at 2000 BC!!!!!

Now here come the problems: As space was so rare, I stopped research completely (which is ok, as I was Tech-Leader at that time, being the first having Alpha) and went all out expansion. It's 1800 BC now and I have 11 Cities, all of them with not a single overlapping tile, so they can develop as Megacities. I run Slavery atm, have Terraces in all of my cities, and so much food, I don't even know what to do with it. I whip every 30 turns (Marathon game of course) for as much as I can, and still Cities grow into unhappiness, so I decided to build temples in them (must of course be Hinduist Temples, as only one of my cities got Buddhism till now) and even founded a non perfect city ON gems, as noone is willing to trade IW! Research is up to 10% again, researching Aesthetics, as someone already has Mathematics. My economy is extremely low of course, and doesn't seem to get better at every turn, though I build as many cottages as I could, but every time a new cottage goes online, my expenses (don't know even which one, can't be unit ones as I only have 1 guarding Unit in every City) seem to eat it up and I still wanna found 2 more cities in the back of my empire, to close up land, bringing me up to 13 Cities, which seems decent, but not overwhelmingly good, as some of the AI's have up to 9 cities and they seem to have more land open up to settling, while I'm being choked everywhere. GP will come in a few turns giving me a few +gold every turn, but not much, as Hinduism didn't spread for some reason. Everybody except Hannibal is friendly to each other and space is used up, so conquering him next will be my main target. Got a GG from the cruasedes in the beginning, so I can build double promoted Spearmans to counter his force of charriots. Anyway, I don't think he will be a large problem, as everyone is pissed of from him being the only Hinduist on the map! By conquering him I at least get stone, giving me a possibility on some wonders but I don't have excess to marble and, noone is willing to trade in this game due to reasons I don't know. I don't see why I can't get IW from someone, they all say "they don't wanna trade it till now" so all of my jungle surrounded cities are worthless till now, and I can't do anything against it. As I oracled Alpha instead of CoL I have no Courthouses to ease my economy, which is at the absolute limit, running negative on 10% research with every city working as much commerce as possible! (Even some production Cities work seatiles not even having a Lighthouse, as nobody wanted to trade sailing till GLH was built in 1800 BC, which is now.)

I will get a little failgold from Temple of Artemis, though I don't think it will be built soon, I even could build it myself in the GP farm if I wanted to, but I'm too afraid of getting a GM, even though it will run 4 Priests after getting holy City in a few turns and having SH + Oracle. I wanna take 2nd GP to lightbulb Theocracy so I can build AP and have some decent tradegood after it. Anyhow, I don't know if AP has any use for me. I can't build missionaries as nobody is willing to trade for Masonry before Pyramids are built and after that Monotheism, which is owned by the same Elizabeth who founded Buddhism, yes, she founded Judaism as well! Can't get Meditation from them as they want to use a GS to get Philosophy, so only chance for me on getting Missionaries would be to research it myself, but that would delay my plans on Aesthetics for about 30 more turns, and I would fall back in tech if I did so. I hope, Pyramids are built soon, I can't build them myself not having Masonry and Stone or even Marble, if not, I hope they will get their GS soon so I can get Meditation and Monestaries from them, as I need Buddhism in more of my cities to get the bonuses from it, as you know, I'm running low on Happiness having to much Growth / Food.

I'm having too much production to use it up, can't develop the jungle cities, can't spread Buddhism to my cities, can't declare war to anybody else after Hannibal as after him, EVERYBODY will be ing Buddhist! My Economy is extremely low, but will recover soon, I still want to play for a Domination Victory and not a cultural one, as I hate cultural and cannot build all the marble wonders not having access to marble. Anyway, I would not even know how to play for a cultural Victory, only things I do know is build Cathedrals and stop Research after PP. I plan for Elepult rushing Hannibal and thought, there might be a chance of converting other civs to Hinduism by espionage, though I don't know how that works (please explain). I have to conquer at least one or more Civs after Hannibal, as my empire still will be too small to have any other chance against Deity AI, so if I cannot convert them, I will go rampage and piss anybody of on this map by attacking Buddhists. I don't know, why my economy is so extremely low and seems to get worse by every turn I spend, though I do nothing besides building cottages. Things in my favour though are, that my cities are awesomely big and I'm #1 on production and food.

Questions are, what would you do next and even after that. I absolutely have no plan other than researching Aesthetics to jump on the Techtradetrain intime and resume my Techlead, build up a decent well promoted military to conquer more land soonly, spam cottages even more and build some WW. How can I get IW to develop my jungle Cities anytime soon if nobody is willing to trade it, how can I convert peoples to Hinduism while remaining Buddhist myself. Should I perhaps go the risk of being Hinduist one turn before building the AP to ensure I get elected by having no rivals, or should I stay Buddhist and pleased with everyone. I'm really thankful for any tips on how to win this game the earliest date possible, but please consider, I started up this round to dominate the world, building Sids Sushi and roflestomping the score, and I don't wanna restart just because some things seem to be absolutetly unusual this time, there must be a way, please help me find it! Advice on how to specialize my Cities is well appreciated, atm. I'm planning my Capital for being 2nd production City, Moskow of course being first, and having 2-3 other production cities which still have to be developed. Rest will be on commerce except Persepolis being the most awesome GP Farm I've ever had.

Tia, Seraiel

 

[strijder20]

Uhm, as a lowly Monarch player, I suggest you convert to Buddhism and join the lovefest. Taking out Hannibal should give you enough land to tech ahead... although with everyone being Buddhist, expect mass tech trades.
If it wasn't for the first screenie, showing Joao and other AIs having 9 cities already, I wouldn't have believed this is Deity... 11 cities and having founded Hinduism in 1800 BC? I don't even get that at Noble!
If you are fast, you can take out Lincoln too (not a Buddhist either).
After you get CoL, you are set for victory, I think.

 

[Seraiel]

Uhm, as a lowly Monarch player, I suggest you convert to Buddhism and join the lovefest. Taking out Hannibal should give you enough land to tech ahead... although with everyone being Buddhist, expect mass tech trades.
If it wasn't for the first screenie, showing Joao and other AIs having 9 cities already, I wouldn't have believed this is Deity... 11 cities and having founded Hinduism in 1800 BC? I don't even get that at Noble!
If you are fast, you can take out Lincoln too (not a Buddhist either).
After you get CoL, you are set for victory, I think.

Thanks for your answer but it's not Lincoln, who is no Buddhist, but Roosevelt. Roosevelt seems to have started on an island, so he didn't get any religion till now, cause all religions were developed on the continent. Anyway, I have to conquer the islands to get all the sea-ressources needed by Sushi, so an idea would be to build some Galleys and conquer them earlier then planned (plan was to conquer the continent first and then go for the islands). Guess they won't have any chance against Elepult, as they won't have Elephants XD This would give me no minus on diplomacy for declaring war on a friend, and I could liberate the conquered cities as colonies (never did that and only know that their should be a button on domestic advisor, but I don't see that button. Anyone posting a Screen of it would help me big time.), I would have to because of maintenance reasons, and still get their ressources by trade. Having an early Vassal also doesn't seem to be that bad of an idea, as he/she would fasten up my research.

And getting CoL also seems urgent for me, as it is the only real way to get a better economy, but I thought researching Aesthetics first might be better, as I should get CoL by Techtrade then. Downside still being I won't be getting it as fast, but Aesthetics also gives me Shewdagon Padingsda allowing organized Religion for Missionaries, that way I would not have to research Meditation or Masonry + Monotheism, and I do want to get Parthenon even without Marble.

Think I will expand some more though research already is too low, conquer Hannibal with a force of Spearman or Elepults if I have them rdy till then and then go for the islands first.

Still have no clue on how to liberate them, how converting religion by espionage would work and how to get Marble, nor why my economy seems to get worse every turn though I build cottages like crazy.

Seraiel

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Kind of difficult reading that post but I guess you want to know why you're economy is in bad shape with 11 cities? You need currency and courthouses at that size is the best answer.

You need to get to writing right away so you can build a library in all those cities and run 2 scientists. Then you need to get alpha somehow ( via trade maybe ) and then get to currency and then CoL.

 

[Seraiel]

Kind of difficult reading that post but I guess you want to know why you're economy is in bad shape with 11 cities? You need currency and courthouses at that size is the best answer.

You need to get to writing right away so you can build a library in all those cities and run 2 scientists. Then you need to get alpha somehow ( via trade maybe ) and then get to currency and then CoL.

Actually I wanted to know, why my economy gets worse if my Cities grow bigger and why it gets better if I whip them down.

Anyway, the economic problem seems to have been solved by luck, Hinduism spread to more than 10 Cities in the last few rounds (yes, now, after everyone is buddhist, it spreads -.- ^^) and my GP came online to found the Kashi Vishwanath giving me +17g / turn so even without currency and courthouses I'm back up to research at 30%. Then, with the Aesthetic trades, I will get Currency and if lucky, also CoL.

And that wasn't the end of the luck, somehow the other AI's were willing to trade IW and Masonry a few turns after I posted, and due to good relationships with them, I was able to get one through Alphabet trade (nearly half of the Civs doesn't have Alpha till now) and the other one was a gift by Victoria.

I thanked her soonly after that, by closing up borders with her, as she tried to move a settler in the back of my empire instead of settling the free region on the screens, and I didn't even get diplomatic malus for that, as I still had the 10t peace treaty from the tech gift remaining

Still expanding and still having questions though what to do next, how converting Civs by espionage works, how liberating colonies works, plan till now is to go for Hannibal first and while doing that settle on the islands to create a vassal. Only way to get Marble though seems to be through war, so not anytime soon, unless I know how to convert my opponements. Anyway, the only ones to be having Marble seem to sit far far away, perhaps I'll find it on one of the islands?

And sry for my post being difficult to read, my english probably isn't the best. Thx for your answer and getting Alpha over the Oracle seems to be even easier than trading for it.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

Actually I wanted to know, why my economy gets worse if my Cities grow bigger and why it gets better if I whip them down.

Couldn't make heads or tails of most of this thread, but I can help you here.

City maintenance and civic costs have a per-city cost and a per-population cost. Typically, 1GPT per population. So, if your population grows into zero-commerce tiles, you're losing money. This is also why coast tiles are so weak: They really only net you 1 CPT.

 

[Seraiel]

Couldn't make heads or tails of most of this thread, but I can help you here.

City maintenance and civic costs have a per-city cost and a per-population cost. Typically, 1GPT per population. So, if your population grows into zero-commerce tiles, you're losing money. This is also why coast tiles are so weak: They really only net you 1 CPT.

Thx for your answer, that explaines to me why a small empires are so efficient.

But I don't get, why people are having such difficulties with my posts, I really tried to ask clear questions, like "how do I liberate a colony (screen plz)" or "how do I convert the religion of somebody" or "what would you do next" etc.

Atm. Elizabeth (the one with the ueberest holy city) is racing away in tech as Victoria does due to being financial and having some gems + lots of cottages. Rest of the Civs are on my tech lvl or even below that, and I'm getting Aesthetics + Theology in about 20 turns. I'm still building Settlers + Workers to expand even more and cottage spam against the costs, running at 20%-30% research and I'm scouting the Islands with a Galley, rdy to drop a Settler if I want to. Hannibal seems to have no copper or iron so war against him will be easy, but I'm afraid, I will get picked next by someone after destroying the only hated target in this game. Victoria even already has calendar, so I think I'm gonna miss the Mausoleum of Maussollos which is odd, as I normally play relying heavily on golden Ages, normally my empire has 3-4 of them on the way to victory.
Biggest empire next to mine is Joao II with 10 Cities, could bribe Bismark to war with him when having Theology + Aesthetics but I'm afraid he will loose and Joao is a neighbour of me, I absolutely don't wanna get to be his worst enemy. As you can expect, there hasn't been a single war in the game and I'm at 1500 BC, the time most wars break out in normal games, but everyone being Buddhist is far away from normal. Only other people willing to be bribed are Victoria and Suleimann, but nobody can be bribed against ueber Elizabeth, as they're all friends with her, not even a trade embargo is possible.

Am I still right by playing with 14 Cities, 5 being production, 8 being commerce and one of course being the GP farm. Things I think about is making the GP Farm as being a holy City also to a giant megacommerce city by spamming cottages, or should I build weak grassland farms instead? (City has quadruple food ressources, so I think there should be enough food even if I pflaster the city with cottages, working them will become the most difficult part I guess.)

 

[MarigoldRan]

The religion that the AI founds always spreads better than the religion YOU found.

Given the econ situation, you have no choice except to butt-sit for the next 1000+ years. To expand like this with the Incans you MUST extensively use fail-gold. Like, for example, 3000 fail-gold with the Pyramids and 1000 fail-gold with like the GW.

The purpose of the fail-gold is to push into Alphabet quickly, and then from then on to Currency. If you fail to get enough gold to get to that point, then everything slows down.

And yes, cottage-spam. You're the Incans.

I'd prepare ele-pult. At the least it's useful as a defensive resource. Wait for the mass wars to break out. Then start picking on people.

Er, I'm not sure you can make colonies unless it's on another continent. Also, not having MoM is fine. As long as you capture it before the string of Golden Ages.

Finally, you need to spread with missionaries and get enough AI cities with your religion before bribing them to convert. But you should know that already.

 

[Seraiel]

The religion that the AI founds always spreads better than the religion YOU found.

Given the econ situation, you have no choice except to butt-sit for the next 1000+ years. To expand like this with the Incans you MUST extensively use fail-gold. Like, for example, 3000 fail-gold with the Pyramids and 1000 fail-gold with like the GW.

The purpose of the fail-gold is to push into Alphabet quickly, and then from then on to Currency. If you fail to get enough gold to get to that point, then everything slows down.

And yes, cottage-spam. You're the Incans.

I'd prepare ele-pult. At the least it's useful as a defensive resource. Wait for the mass wars to break out. Then start picking on people.

Er, I'm not sure you can make colonies unless it's on another continent. Also, not having MoM is fine. As long as you capture it before the string of Golden Ages.

Finally, you need to spread with missionaries and get enough AI cities with your religion before bribing them to convert. But you should know that already.

Thx for your advice, I will think on using failgold more extensively next time, as I had to "butt-sit" some time, not 1000y though, but GW was built before I even got Masonry and Pyramids were built at 1500 BC, and without having access to stone or marble, failgold doesn't look so good imho.

Found a way out of it as my 2nd GP came by the time I had Aesthetics, a time where the Tech-Leaders Elizabeth + Victoria already were 5-6 techs up ahead, but catched up by researching a few turns into monarchy and then traded Aesthetics for Meditation + Monotheism, Mathematics and Monarchy. Took all the techs to get Horseback Riding and Calendar from somebody else and bribed Mhemed to war with Elizabeth (yes, that possibility was also a surprise for me). After that Elizabeth took her CoL to bribe some other Civs against Mhemed, so I could easily get it by trading the lightbulbed Theology for it I even got more lucky and got Construction some time after that by trading Theology again so Elepult is on the way now at 1000 BC.

Again got lucky and got Mausoleum and Parthenon even without Marble by hardcore chopping, skipped the rest of the wonders though as they don't seem to be worth building without Marble and Stone, of course that doesn't count for the Great Library which is also in my hands now. Traded Literature for roughly 3k gold so I could upgrade all Quechuas to Axeman and research some time on 100% to not fall back again and win the Music race. Tech tempo is ultrafast again, guess by 500 BC I will have Culrassiers.

What do you mean by string of golden ages though? Is there a purpose to launch them later then sooner? I normally launch them as early as possible, though this time I will wait till I get Philosophy and Pacifism, chopped Heroic Epic instead of Shewdagon Paya.

And spreading Hinduism some more seems to be a good idea, do you know if the convert-mission of the spy gets cheaper if more population is Hinduist, or is one city already enough? Btw, it's not true that the religion a player founds spreads worse than AI religion, in my last game I oracled CoL and Confuicianism spread so well after that, that more than half of the Civs took it as state religion. Buddhism (which was also founded by me) Hinduism and Judaism had no chance in that game, as the Confuicianist holy City simply had the better river, that's why I was so astonished that only 2 Civs got my even earlier religion being placed at an even better river this time. Seems to be kind of too random for me.

 

[K.Murx]

But I don't get, why people are having such difficulties with my posts, I really tried to ask clear questions, like "how do I liberate a colony (screen plz)" or "how do I convert the religion of somebody" or "what would you do next" etc.

Some things I tend to do:

• You have a nice game going on. But if you want advice, avoid talking about "historical details" of your game, or put that in a clearly marked paragraph/section of your post. If you want advice then state the situation, state your questions, state your plans. A "Big Wall of Text" where everything is mixed up is not very readable.
• Shorten your sentences. Leave out as many "filler words" as possible, and split sentences into two where possible. Do not state the obvious - most people here are reasonably intelligent. E.g.,
  

  I don't see why I can't get IW from someone, they all say "they don't wanna trade it till now" so all of my jungle surrounded cities are worthless till now, and I can't do anything against it.

  may just as well become "No one wants to trade IW yet."
• Spend some time on formatting. Try to learn some bb-code (pretty universal markup language for forums nowadays), or just use those little icons right atop the text box when posting. At the very least, make judicious use of paragraphs. Especially questions should be in some sort of a list format - this makes the individual questions far more readable.

 

[JammerUno]

There's the advisor hiding behind your F2 key that tells you where your money's all disappearing to, that might be useful to look at.

 

[MarigoldRan]

If there's nothing I particularly need to do earlier, I wait to string Golden Ages late-medieval to early-Renaissance.

You have more pop points to take advantage of it. Also, that's when my biggest civic changes occur. Furthermore, it's perfect for Curs and Cav rushes. I don't particularly care about running Pacifism for GAs. Great People have a diminishing return as the game continues.

Also, the longer you save your GAs, the higher your score will be. Furthermore, Corps take a long time to spread, and a Golden Age can significantly increase your ability to build Executives. So save one for that time.

Pretty bad luck to take out 3-4 civs and still not get stone or marble. Depending on what you needed there, I'd consider chopping the Paya to near-completion if you have the gold resource for the fail-gold. On the other hand, if you needed production for army, then what you did: heroic epic is the way to go.

Without Marble, I'd consider ignoring MoM and instead build straight for war or fail-gold. One idea is that later in the game, even if the MoM is built faraway, a small raiding force of ten cavs can capture it, THEN you string 2-3 golden ages at once. And if it's closer, just kill the person with MoM first.

Finally, if it's late into the game, and you want factories and airports up, and you're ORG, Golden Ages are the way to go because the bonus hammers with the Golden Age synergizes with the +100% Factory and Airport Production of ORG.

 

[Bigv32]

posting a save as well can do more than a wall of text. However, I believe most of your issues came from having 11 cities on diety before writing, currency, or CoL. Helping your religion expand would mean getting writing earlier to help with open borders.

 

[Seraiel]

Some things I tend to do:

• You have a nice game going on. But if you want advice, avoid talking about "historical details" of your game, or put that in a clearly marked paragraph/section of your post. If you want advice then state the situation, state your questions, state your plans. A "Big Wall of Text" where everything is mixed up is not very readable.
• Shorten your sentences. Leave out as many "filler words" as possible, and split sentences into two where possible. Do not state the obvious - most people here are reasonably intelligent. E.g.,
  
  may just as well become "No one wants to trade IW yet."
• Spend some time on formatting. Try to learn some bb-code (pretty universal markup language for forums nowadays), or just use those little icons right atop the text box when posting. At the very least, make judicious use of paragraphs. Especially questions should be in some sort of a list format - this makes the individual questions far more readable.

I will use BB-Code more often, I promise. I did though try to state the situation by details of the game and filler words might be used accidentally cause english is a foraign language for me and I was already better at speaking / writing it, but I will take your advice and try to keep things easier, shorter and betterly formatet next time.

There's the advisor hiding behind your F2 key that tells you where your money's all disappearing to, that might be useful to look at.

Thx, but I'm no total noob. I knew I was running extremely low on money due to my overexpansion. Marigold gave better advice by showing me the importance of Currency, CoL and Failgold.

If there's nothing I particularly need to do earlier, I wait to string Golden Ages late-medieval to early-Renaissance.

You have more pop points to take advantage of it. Also, that's when my biggest civic changes occur. Furthermore, it's perfect for Curs and Cav rushes. I don't particularly care about running Pacifism for GAs. Great People have a diminishing return as the game continues.

Also, the longer you save your GAs, the higher your score will be. Furthermore, Corps take a long time to spread, and a Golden Age can significantly increase your ability to build Executives. So save one for that time.

Hmm. I have one question, why does a GA increase my ability to build executives? To saving up the GA's I must oppose, that an earlier GA may make it possible to conquer an opponement earlier, getting a tech-lead earlier and by that finish the game sooner.

Pretty bad luck to take out 3-4 civs and still not get stone or marble. Depending on what you needed there, I'd consider chopping the Paya to near-completion if you have the gold resource for the fail-gold. On the other hand, if you needed production for army, then what you did: heroic epic is the way to go.

Without Marble, I'd consider ignoring MoM and instead build straight for war or fail-gold. One idea is that later in the game, even if the MoM is built faraway, a small raiding force of ten cavs can capture it, THEN you string 2-3 golden ages at once. And if it's closer, just kill the person with MoM first.

Ok, building MoM + Parthenon without Marble really was something I will think about next time, as it costed an imense number of Forrests. Thats why I skipped most of the other wonders, but with the Taj Mahal I couldn't resist aswell, GA's are just so awesome, I think it was worth chopping 10+ Forrests. Anyway, after conquering Hannibal I now got Stone and found Marble on an Island. I was even able to get the circumnavigation bonus in this game, something I never manged before.

Finally, if it's late into the game, and you want factories and airports up, and you're ORG, Golden Ages are the way to go because the bonus hammers with the Golden Age synergizes with the +100% Factory and Airport Production of ORG.

Thx again for all your advice Mari.

posting a save as well can do more than a wall of text. However, I believe most of your issues came from having 11 cities on diety before writing, currency, or CoL. Helping your religion expand would mean getting writing earlier to help with open borders.

Sry, but my wall of text must have confused you. I was first to have Alphabet as I oracled it, that of course means I got writing. Currency, CoL and Failgold would have been nice, but I got them easily with the Aesthetics and the lightbulbed Theology trade. Might have been even quicker, if I had used Failgold. Religion though had no chance at all, I kind of beelined for writing by researching Polytheism -> Priesthood -> Writing. Polytheism was a fail I won't do again, thought I might get to Monotheism early enough to spread Religion by organized Religion, but by that time everyone was already Buddhist, Monestaries are simply the way to go next time.

Btw, funny happenings up till now. Every Religion has been founded, Buddhism makes over 55% of the worlds religion, but nobody except me has built a holy cathedral till now though quite a lot great prophets were born

 

[Dirk1302]

Can you play a normal speed game? Marathon is pretty different but definitely easier. Playing with so many civs makes diplo more awkward but economics easy, always someone to trade with.

 

[Seraiel]

Can you play a normal speed game? Marathon is pretty different but definitely easier. Playing with so many civs makes diplo more awkward but economics easy, always someone to trade with.

I don't like normal games, as units get obsolete too fast imho. Even in Marathon they get outdated very fast imho, at first Axeman I couldn't even use cause Elephants came so soon after, then Maceman at 800 BC and now Culrassiers at 1 AD, followed up by Canons and Cavalary in 400 AD. Can't imagine a game where tech would be even faster.

 

[strijder20]

Seraiel, at what difficulty did you start playing? Monarch?
Just wondering.
Because in Monarch and below, they won't get maces by 800 BC. They won't get Cuirasses at 1 AD, no, they won't even get liberalism before 1000 AD.
Of course, on Deity Marathon and Epic seem good choices - if somewhat easier - you could state that a SoD is obsolete before it's build on that level...

 

[Seraiel]

Started out on Chieftain and lost horribly. Then I read this forum, found something about "workers can chop trees for production", thought WTH, and soon after that won my first game on prince

And tech-tempo in this Deity game really is over the top, but thats also because of the 17 Civilizations and the tons of land AI can develop.

Btw, funniest thing I observed today: Park a ship next to the enemy cost to get the 10% defense Bonus, better, park some ships there, you won't believe how many Ships an AI can build and instantly suicide after that. All my Galleons are now higher promoted than the land units they transport

 

[Seraiel]

Btw, found the answer to my main problem in this thread, which wasn't economy due to overexpansion without Currency and CoL, but why everyone got Buddhist before ORG was even possible. Religion spreads by possible trade routes, note, there only must be a possible traderoute, not an actual one. Elizabeth had Sailing and by that lots of traderoutes through the river of doom, I didn't have sailing, so only traderoutes by normal roads. Connecting roads to the rivers by me was useless therefor, as I had no sailing, and sailing is only tradable after GLH has been built, which is far beyond the line where religions are spread. Having Monestaries over nothing from me was the next point, at where I failed, never pick Polytheism if you can get Meditation instead.

 

[MarigoldRan]

To get high scores, you might not necessarily want to finish the game ASAP.

The golden age increases the hammers for making executives. 200 hammers is a lot. Though if you're planning to whip sushi executives out, then I reckon earlier Golden Ages to get to Sushi might be more useful.