I can't do it! (deity)

[ahcos]

Hijacking the thread, but it doesn't seem that the OP cares for strategic discussions anyway so w/e ...

@Doshin: Im surprised that you seem to have all that knowledge and still don't consider yourself as someone who can judge about a good Oracle start? I bet you could know. Lemme give you (and everyone else who might read this) a kickstart-miniguide about what helps with going Oracle:

- Commerce. Unless you start with a horrible leader in a horrible situation, gems or gold alone almost always makes Oracle at least possible
- good starting techs with the right resources. Traits aren't that important (although they definetely can help - IND, EXP, CRE to some extend), but if you have to research AH or Fishing in order to get food, you have a bad shot at Oracle, as BW is almost mandatory to chop the oracle out in time.
- Some forests, as it should be clear from what i wrote before - you most likely will need the production.
- Either Bronze nearby, or a map that you can either defend with Warriors alone or that is crowded with the AI. It's hard to judge early on wether or not you will need a proper barb defense, but if you decide correctly it'll pay off by an large amount.

Therefore, Pangea (or Pangea-alike) maps tend to make Oracle a good choice, especially as you'll have alot of trading partners to leverage the slingshot. Maps with alot of open space make oracle more of a gamble unless you have Bronze nearby (or the commerce to research Archery on top in time). Exclusive fishfood starts tend to be out of the competition for Oracle most of the time, just like starts with low commerce and only AH resources as food, starts with no forests, every leader that has neither AG, Myst nor Mining in general, although given the right land that might work just fine.

Not to forget it's almost always better to establish a block that gives you another good/great city spot or two than going oracle. That is, unless you want to rush ofc

Nobles Club games often give very good oracle starts.

Edit:

@Ondskan, you're making a fool of yourself. You're lacking basic knowledge, so there's no point discussing.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

This thread has now been hijacked to discuss how awesome the Oracle is for everything.

There are a whole 4 things you can do with the Oracle, and 4 different types of starts that it is suited for.

The first is a good commerce start with little land that will allow you to do a 4-5 city Catapult rush. This start wants a nice capital, and enough land around the capital to settle 3 more cities to share cottages, and 1 more for nice production via the whip or hammers. This slingshot is one of the strongest rushes in the game, as if you have or can get Elephants you can take out or vassalize another AI past the first. Also in some IMM, and bellow games you can work your way to Eng, and just win the game out right with only staying out of war for a good 5 turns to whip more units.

The next is the weaker commerce but overall good 4-5 city start that is similar to the Construction rush but with more food, and a less commerce strong empire. With this start you are best off Oracling CoL for Caste to get 2-3 GS depending on if you can trade CoL + Alpha/Math/Aesth for MC. This will allow for a slightly less delayed Eng rush instead of working just 2 scientists from a library. With this you can also win the game out right on IMM, and lower but on Deity you sometimes get stalled by the massive unit spammers.

The next good target is Currency. For this you want to have good solid land that can make use of the trade routes, and building wealth for mass expansion. It will allow you to hit 12+ cities in the BCs, and not be broke. Currency, and Construction are the 2 strongest Oracle targets in my eyes.

The last is the normal cookie cutter 6-7 city bulb to Libing MT start that everyone should understand.

 

[vranasm]

You are further incorrect when it comes to AI bonuses.

what part about AI bonuses is not true? it's source code knowledge that with each era AI gets more research bonus (or cheaper techs, not sure now)
not sure with production bonuses

 

[Ondskan]

It is something that's been used by good players since Civ 1. This is couple with a high lumbermill or workshop build although I prefer lumbermills. To some extent golden ages can be used with villages and the extra shield they produce with democracy although obviously it's looked differenlty in every game past and future.

The idea is to reach such a high level of development yourself while at the same time reaching a level where the AI's ever culminating bonuses become useless.
In my game that level (nearly, since getting computers would be nice) is reached. Had culture, space and diplomatic victories been turned on the safest bet would've been just to wait until future tech. My mistakes was a bit to tight city spacing, that's cause I was trying to culture flip stuff which was a really fun project. But this late in the game I am controlling what would be my rivals city tiles so it's good anyway.

At this point you are possibly either pumping out so many great people, you have so many good corporations or you got mines and forests/workshops everywhere that you are making most units 1 per turn, sprinkle a little gold on that which you have to much of anyway and you're making freaking Modern Armour 1 per turn every second time and 1 per two turns otherwise

At the same time the AI is getting nothing for its production bonuses. It could be making the same thing as you and suddenly it's not playing Deity, it's playing ing noble


Oh how I love this, knowing that I could probably beat most of you who have written here in my sleep if we were playing online. But go on.

Always grateful for some of the early posters tho and their good advice.
Further more if you want someone to leave don't comment or ask him questions, sigh. Hijack the thread instead! I Grant you that permission!

 

[ahcos]

Oh how I love this, knowing that I could probably beat most of you who have written here in my sleep if we were playing online. But go on.

At what point did you start to believe that this is relevant in any way when you're discussing player vs. computer games?

And why do you think you've any clue about playing the game on the highest possible difficulties, when you gimp the game down to your level? Hell, even i can beat a chess computer if i deny him most of his winning strategies. But go on to make a fool of yourself, the forum has seen people of your kind already, we'll get over it.

 

[Ondskan]

At what point did you start to believe that this is relevant in any way when you're discussing player vs. computer games?

And why do you think you've any clue about playing the game on the highest possible difficulties, when you gimp the game down to your level? Hell, even i can beat a chess computer if i deny him most of his winning strategies. But go on to make a fool of yourself, the forum has seen people of your kind already, we'll get over it.

You're obsessed with beating a game. I am not!
I wanted to be able to win not to win it.

What I meant when I said I didn't count it was simply that I wasn't in a hopeless situation. My empire prospered and was gloriously large. His was the artistic center of the world.
All is well ;-)


Do you want me to make a fool of myself or not? Make up your mind already and act accordingly. Zx Zero Zx played it far better.

 

[Doshin]

Thanks to ahcos and ZxZero for info on starts and their appropriateness for the Oracle.

I used to try to build the Oracle only when I had marble, which I now know is a mistake for several reasons. My recent games have also been better suited to REXing (two of which were in the NC), so I haven't had the chance to get to grips with it.

Other areas I'm not comfortable with: gauging how long the Oracle can be delayed, and calculating how much growth (settlers/workers) or development (infrastructure) can be sacrificed as part of the attempt. I don't like to miss the wonder and be forced to reload, which is why I've tended to avoid it... bad play in certain situations.

Since we're on the topic: what external factors delay or speed up the AI's attempts to build the wonder? This is what I think:

Isabella can go for it ridiculously early (I've seen 2600 BC, 2560 BC a few times).
Other religious whores (Pacal/Hatchet/Pericles?) will build it early.
Industrious AIs, of course, can get it sooner.
A watery map will slow things down.

Obviously things like marble in an AI's BFC will speed their attempts, but unless the ToA is built incredibly early, there's no way to recognize that an AI has marble. The same goes for gold or gems in an AI's BFC (quicker) or cows/sheep/pigs (slower).

 

[Doshin]

Current game:



----->

 

[Revent]

Did you build the 'Mids Doshin?

 

[Doshin]

Nope, just the Oracle and Great Library... I generated 10 Great People by 1000 AD.

I think it took 24 turns to research Rifling, running the slider at 100%

 

[pepe26]

holy crap 24?! did you beeline that radically or why was it so expensive?

 

[ahcos]

Look at his improvements - mainly farms, even in his capital. Just not too much commerce, especially if you start whipping which lowers your commerce income even further. With very little commerce, even if you run 100% slider you're just not getting too much research out of it. Actually, that's something alot of new players don't seem to understand.

 

[Funky]

Hi,

I'm a ~50% Immortal player. I've beaten Diety once before, though that was a raging barbarians game with stone in my capital's BFC, so I guess it doesn't count as a proper win. Actually I hardly ever played Diety, maybe three games or so alltogether, mainly because I prefer to play without tech trading. That is fine for immortal (a decent starting position is required, and I usually play on epic speed, but then I can often pull off a win). But, finally getting to my question, how is it in Diety? Is it even worth trying Diety without tech trading? I mean, even with tech trading on I would probably lose at the moment, unless I get really lucky. But is it theoretically possible to pull off?

 

[ahcos]

There are very little things that you absolutely can NOT pull off in this game, so yes, it is possible. But it surely will be rather hard, depending on the map.

 

[Revent]

Funky, try an espionage economy. Bulbs are a lot less powerful without tech trading sports settling may be worth it (except for I guess Phil and Edu)

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Tech trading just adds a difficulty modifier. Personally it is a lot harder for me as the play style I have developed centers around tech brokering, one of the reasons IMM AW is stupidly hard for me, and I can only dream of Deity.

 

[Ondskan]

I will have to report you if you divert more from the Oracle discussion, sorry, gotta draw the line somewhere!


and lol, you're last.

 

[pepe26]

how can you have more than 1k posts and still not have been assassinated?

 

[traius]

Tech trading just adds a difficulty modifier. Personally it is a lot harder for me as the play style I have developed centers around tech brokering, one of the reasons IMM AW is stupidly hard for me, and I can only dream of Deity.

Yeah, a modifier, but the modifier is a function of both player skill and difficulty (though this could potentially be simplified to "player skill - ai skill"). When you are much better than your AI opponents (ie you are playing on a difficulty setting too low for you), no tech trading lowers the difficulty, as the AI, which already couldn't keep up with you, can't even hope to trade to catch up. You could even just declare on everyone, as diplomacy is irrelevant in a game where friendliness doesn't affect trading techs and everyone is crappier than you. When you are on par, tech trading makes things about the same. You were already treading water well tech wise, and now you can trade to bolster your strength, but the AI can too, and tech leads can be used as a weapon in proxy wars. If you were already incapable of keeping up, then never being able to back-fill techs or slingshot up to whatever the modern military tech is, or pay off your aggressors with techs, or pay other civs to war with one another to distract people from you etc etc is going to make a bad situation hopeless.

 

[coanda]

Tech trading just adds a difficulty modifier. Personally it is a lot harder for me as the play style I have developed centers around tech brokering, one of the reasons IMM AW is stupidly hard for me, and I can only dream of Deity.

Yes, it changes the difficulty. That said, it's more than just a difficulty modifier. It rebalances diplomacy (trading bonuses and bribery harder to get going), changes tech priorities (no longer distorted to "whatever the AI doesn't research eagerly enough on its own"), tinkers with economic priorities (you no longer want an economy that stays roughly on par with the AIs; instead you need one that will put out the techs your empire can use when it can best use them; this can tilt the balance between bulbing and other GP uses for example), boosts espionage value... the list goes on. Turning off tech trading requires some significant adjustments to strategic thinking.