I friggin' abhor Pacal II (and those super techer).

[Manco Capac]

[Rant]

This thread has no value at all, but for the first time ever I want to waste my time to write such thing as the frustration is unbearable.

In order to embrace deity level world, I did some games up to 1 AD to feel the tech pace and deity pace in general. In one of my attempt, as Nappy, I decided to choke Gilgamesh (hard, but possible on some occasions) and I did this choice as I had horses in BFC (big sweet surprise).
In nutshell, I choked him well, killed him later with HA's, found a free courthouse in his cities, generated a GSpy, steal techs later from Ragnar my far neighbour with 15 cities. He was about to kill me around 500 BC with a huge stack, so I hoped Hammy (yes, it was a continent of 3 AI's plus me.) would attack soon Ragnar with his SoD near Ragnar lands, but as it was too late, I gave a tech to Ragnar to make him pleased, teched Masonry near end, then begged the rest from him, diverting him in the moment his master plan to crush me. Phew. It was closed...and my expectations went fruitful as Hammy DoWed him two turns later. As the time was forwarding I liberated bunches of cities to Ragnar to make him friendly and that was it, I was completely secured. The game was won I guess.
Later, I drafted lots of Rifles and completely invaded Ragnar taking all his cities (now I had 33 cities; it is a large mapsize.) I also vassalized Hammy in the process as I wanted to lift the WFYABTA.
The problem was the other continent where monster Pacal II was teching at lightspeed and as usual I see gunning for crap techs up to Radio. His tech pace was so stunning I thought it was quick speed , but it wasn't.

I beelined to Assembly Line and brought a big army of them with some CR3 along, I captured his capital so easily from the sea after fomenting civil disorder for one turn.
The problems came after as he was spamming troops like cavalry and Railroad online, it was a disaster. It was swarming all around of those pesky pests and I made the fatal error to let 3/4 of my army in boats in his captured captital guarded with 8 infantries.

Out of nowhere, they came and I lost around 40 units for 8 losts. I lost half of my power! Noooo! Where was my mind!?? All I can see I was too confident and now all I can gain from him is around 50 gold!

50 gold for bazilions of hammers losts, money for upgrades, turns lost for espionage and gathering money.
What a friggin' fool I am!
Why did I gun for that temper tantrum little guy instead of his neighbours not having yet Rifling. Because I am a fool, I say!!!
When I saw Railroad in 4 turns and Combustion in three turns, I feared what might happen in the future.

The game isn't lost, but I really don't feel the willingness to continue it anymore or rather not for now.

Lesson learnt: Go pickin' after the weaks and not those super techers where they are becoming monsters in later stages of the game, especially in situation dom. limit can be more or less acquired with weaker targets.

Why weakling Pacal II becomes such an annoyance in later stages of the game?
Recently, AZ lost a game because of him to make a interesting link.
I think the answer is obvious, but ... *breathing* ah never mind.

[/Rant]

I have to admit those deity players are otherworldly...but I think duckweed made a similar mistake in BOTM40?, so I guess it can be occuring to anyone.

 

[AJ11]

Actually, your problem wasn't that he was a super techer. Your problem was that you made a mistake (leaving units in boats) in a Deity level game. Don't blame Pacal. Admit and learn from your mistake and win the next time round.

 

[Manco Capac]

Actually, your problem wasn't that he was a super techer. Your problem was that you made a mistake (leaving units in boats) in a Deity level game. Don't blame Pacal. Admit and learn from your mistake and win the next time round.

I know that...I am just not used to deity environment... and random settings.
At least, up to now, the game was full of actions, that is why i felt twice harder that horrible mistake.

I guess that is why everyone is turning pangea maps, forgetting continents maps.
If Pacal II was on the continent, it would a lot easier for sure. My map type was a fractal one that turned out to be a continent type of map.

Now I remember, my super healer cavalry was along those sunken martyrs....

Just curious about this since quite a time:

I think in the past, deity players tended to play continents map type, then they shifted to fractal and end up now with pangea types. I am curious about the reasons behind. All I know about fractal: it may cause disproportionated unbalance, that's it.

There won't be any next against him, but I will pick his neighbours as targets. Kublai Khan and Ramses (who is gunning for culture victory) don't even have the prerequisite of Rifling to add to the absurdity of my poor decision.

 

[AJ11]

I know that...I am just not used to deity environment... and random settings.
At least, up to now, the game was full of actions, that is why i felt twice harder that horrible mistake.

I guess that is why everyone is turning pangea maps, forgetting continents maps.
If Pacal II was on the continent, it would a lot easier for sure. My map type was a fractal one that turned out to be a continent type of map.

Now I remember, my super healer cavalry was along those sunken martyrs....

Just curious about this since quite a time:

I think in the past, deity players tended to play continents map type, then they shifted to fractal and end up now with pangea types. I am curious about the reasons behind. All I know about fractal: it may cause disproportionated unbalance, that's it.

There won't be any next against him, but I will pick his neighbours as targets. Kublai Khan and Ramses (who is gunning for culture victory) don't even have the prerequisite of Rifling to add to the absurdity of my poor decision.

Deity is like that: very unforgiving.

It gets worse when you have events and steroids and huts on. But I like it. The challenge is something that I rarely find elsewhere: extremely difficult but not IRL lethal, but most importantly, not just plain old frustrating.

The reason why people pick Pangaea is that the AI is absolute pants at naval invasions. Once you have conquered your continent, you are basically safe from getting killed. Land battles, on the other hand, is where the AI can get really nasty.

 

[Manco Capac]

The reason why people pick Pangaea is that the AI is absolute pants at naval invasions. Once you have conquered your continent, you are basically safe from getting killed. Land battles, on the other hand, is where the AI can get really nasty.

Ah that was the reason...I thought it had to do with absolute lack of control on the other continents and it may end up to unbalanced situations. The worst is being a two civ island compared to a continent full of techers. Sometimes, bribing AI's on each other may have dramatic consequences.

 

[AJ11]

Ah that was the reason...I thought it had to do with absolute lack of control on the other continents and it may end up to unbalanced situations. The worst is being a two civ island compared to a continent full of techers. Sometimes, bribing AI's on each other may have dramatic consequences.

Unbalanced situations can't be helped even in Pangaea. Starting in the tundra/Arctic areas is a guaranteed "you're screwed". And most times, a couple of the civs would have more space to expand than others, giving them an advantage.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ah that was the reason...I thought it had to do with absolute lack of control on the other continents and it may end up to unbalanced situations. The worst is being a two civ island compared to a continent full of techers. Sometimes, bribing AI's on each other may have dramatic consequences.

The reason deity players favor certain map scripts is, in a word, preference.

Pangaea is, however, one of the few map sets where there is very low chances for any 1 AI out of 7 to get 24%+ land without fighting in any wars at all. In continents it happens but is more rare than with fractal (which can get freaking ridiculous at times).

It's up for debate whether pangaea is actually harder than continents. I'm inclined to say it is NOT. The reason is that the AI on the other continent will often pursue culture, putting time pressure on you to go stop it and delaying tech whores like pacal/joao from reaching nukes + going space. Staging a successful intercontinental invasion on an AI with nukes, SDI, and all max tech units is very difficult and takes a huge investment. Not only do you need to be able to pull that off, but you need to have enough left in the tank to still win before the NEXT guy wins...or to carry the momentum and finish it with military outright.

Deity is where you really get pushed. You want to start a rifle war? Better make it snappy. I've seen the AI found mining inc at 1700 AD...which doesn't sound too bad until you realize that he used the great engineer you get from reaching FUSION FIRST to found that corporation . That AI obviously has mech inf, nukes, the full platter. If you don't also have at least nukes or jet fighters or SOMETHING by 1700 AD, you lose space. That isn't very easy to intercept when mansa musa wins culture in 20 turns also however.

I would argue that the logistics forcing you to invade multiple near-victory AIs on other continents is far harder on average than a pangaea map, especially with vassal states on where the human can abuse the vassal rules to win on deity pangaea comparatively easily. It's not that the human is under any serious threat from intercontinental invasion, but rather that he needs to come up with the tech and production to stage one himself in time.

Marathon makes that a lot easier, but on fast speeds the AI tech pace on the other continent can be particularly problematic. A lot of deity AI can manage 2 techs in the time it takes to sail to them on normal if you're talking the late-galleon era! The worst is quick game speed though, where culture victories are scaled to be easier relative to other VC (a rather stupid design choice, given that quick nerfs the hell out of war in general).

 

[MarigoldRan]

If you end up on the wrong continent, and Feudalism hits, and Kublai's chain-vassaling it at Marathon, your opinion would be different.

And AIs tech at RAPID speeds even at Marathon, once they get enough land. If the AI is 3x bigger, it'll tech 3x faster, which will make up for the 2x slower research times. They tech slower at the beginning, but they tech just as fast, if not faster, later on.

The AI timings for Feudalism is probably one of the most important timings in the game at Marathon. Not just because of LBs, but because of vassal states.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you end up on the wrong continent, and Feudalism hits, and Kublai's chain-vassaling it at Marathon, your opinion would be different.

And AIs tech at RAPID speeds even at Marathon, once they get enough land. If the AI is 3x bigger, it'll tech 3x faster, which will make up for the 2x slower research times. They tech slower at the beginning, but they tech just as fast, if not faster, later on.

The AI timings for Feudalism is probably one of the most important timings in the game at Marathon. Not just because of LBs, but because of vassal states.

Vassal states can cut both ways though. God help the AI if YOU get your hands on a loyal vassal .

I've screwed around on deity before where I declared and capped someone, then gifted all the cities back, gifted them all of my metal, and spammed warriors for them to insta-upgrade into super advanced units, simply hiding behind that vassal all game as it grows to ridiculous proportions. Comically, that works. They COULD break free, but usually don't. I've had a vassal with 200% master land not break free, just getting larger and larger and larger. A rather silly experiment.