Incredible Deity Start

[Gliese 581]

So I was fooling around with start gambits on deity when I came across this start, probably the best I've ever had.
I wanted to share it with people in case they're in the same seat as me, doing fine on immortal and learning the ropes at deity, you can't ask for a much better opportunity than what is given with this start.

5 seafood, cow, 2 grassland hills then all FPs, every land tile riverside.

Settings are Normal Speed, Standard Fractal Map, 7 civs. Leader: Elisabeth.

Enjoy.

 

[Stewie0416]

I've had a capital with 3 fish and 2 clams but not cows AND floods! GP farm ftw!

 

[UWHabs]

Wouldn't you not be able to grow the city enough to make it as a GP farm? Sure, you can use the 5 water resources for a lot of food, but you have 20 very usable squares (well 17 if you ignore 3 coast squares which aren't bad). Being financial as well, you could cottage the floodplains and have a massively great commerce city. You could probably settle a city south of there to steal 2 clams and a bunch of floodplains to settle as a GP farm.

 

[Gliese 581]

Wouldn't you not be able to grow the city enough to make it as a GP farm? Sure, you can use the 5 water resources for a lot of food, but you have 20 very usable squares (well 17 if you ignore 3 coast squares which aren't bad). Being financial as well, you could cottage the floodplains and have a massively great commerce city. You could probably settle a city south of there to steal 2 clams and a bunch of floodplains to settle as a GP farm.

This city is strong enough to be your main GP farm and powerhouse bureacracy capital, the only thing needed is happiness.

 

[Stewie0416]

I dont play high levels at all but wouldnt this city also kinda lack in production? you have 2 Grassland hills. Is that enough?

 

[Gliese 581]

I dont play high levels at all but wouldnt this city also kinda lack in production? you have 2 Grassland hills. Is that enough?

With bureacracy you get 1hammer from city square + 2 from cows +6 from mines x 1.5 = 13 which is passable, before that there's the whip of course and later watermills, workshops if wanted (or draft for units).

 

[Dirk1302]

Great start, not as good though as the start i hit on the second ultimate deity attempt, iirc that had 2 gold 2 plain furs, some 4 seafood, and some cottagible tiles and even some hills. But i discarded it because i didn't think it'd make for a normal civ experience.

 

[popejubal]

I dont play high levels at all but wouldnt this city also kinda lack in production?

(10 chars)

 

[DMOC]

This is a great start...let's hope the actual MAP is a bit generous as well.

 

[vicawoo]

3 generic water tiles, regenerate please. Or make a wonderspam capital.

 

[D_almighty]

This could still be a lategame production player if all those floodplains were cottaged; levee'd US towns would give this city 31 hammers before modifiers. You also have more than enough food to fill up every engineer slot available.

 

[Gliese 581]

Yeah basically this city can become a great anything since food is king and it's almost all river. It's true though that you can't utilize it all really early, it will only truly flex its muscles from the midgame and onwards unlike starts with some food and gold or such. At that point however I think it could become strong enough to almost single-handedly carry the necessary research to be successful.

I almost wish this was an OCC.

 

[hal08]

Get Monarchy early for happy police so you can grow this city ASAP. Health shouldn't be a problem since there is so much food here, I don't see why this city can't get to size 20+ rather early, unless the maintenance for police is too restrictive on deity.

 

[Dirk1302]

Indeed, more than on most other starts early monarchy would help immensely.Maybe this game should be played as a sort of semi occ. Build a few other cities but don't rex since that implies whipping in capital and maintenance trouble. Subsequently focus on teching fast to some superior military unit, draft the other cities to depletion not caring too much about happiness there and attack a neighbour really early.

Depends on the rest of the map as well of course. Could well be that some other strat is better/needed after all.

 

[Gliese 581]

Get Monarchy early for happy police so you can grow this city ASAP. Health shouldn't be a problem since there is so much food here, I don't see why this city can't get to size 20+ rather early, unless the maintenance for police is too restrictive on deity.

Even if you run pacifism and they all cost 2 gold, every added population point working a FP cottage or coast tile start at 3 commerce and grows from there or gives 3 gold if you run them as merchants.
Another alternative is the globe theatre in case another civic than HR is desired.

 

[Poodlebrain]

This could still be a lategame production player if all those floodplains were cottaged; levee'd US towns would give this city 31 hammers before modifiers. You also have more than enough food to fill up every engineer slot available.

If all you want is production capacity, then throw in the Maori Statues for another 9 hammers. The only problem with that is the fact you won't be able to build some other National Wonder that might be more beneficial. This city would be a great location for any of the +100% modifiers since it will be able to support so much commerce and/or specialists, not to mention the unlimited happiness of the Globe Theater.

 

[popejubal]

You are obviously not going to be working all of the 20 tiles plus 10 specialists or so that you can max out on in this city, so my first priority here would be to not waste the flood plains.

Plant another city 3N and 1E of the current city and give that city any flood plains it can reach for cottages. The capital works the fish and the second city works the flood plains cottages.

This allows the cottages to grow and you get all that lovely commerce while they are growing. By the time you get Bureaucracy, you'll have some more health resources and health buildings along with Monarchy as a civic and you can start to grow the capital like crazy. Put the capital's citizens to work on the flood plains and dial down the specialists until you grow to your health cap (or beyond) and now your capital is working lots of towns that would not have otherwise grown to maturity.

You can do the same with a city 3 south and 2 east to work just about all of the capital's gorgeous tiles efficiently without letting all those delicious fish and clams go to waste. I would certainly whip Maeiou Statues here for the extra 8 base production per turn and you can work every tile in the BFC long before you "should" be able to and the capital can take back those tiles once it has a civic worthy of the tiles' theft.

My only other suggestion is to save the two forests for something really important. Sure, mines on those hills are good, but you'll be racing for Monarchy or Pyramids as soon as you can, so wait until you have stone or marble hooked up and drop in a Great Library or Maeiou Statues with the bonus to production. Everything else can be whipped - just remember to let any overflow hammers fall into the Statues and try to whip for 2 or more population whenever possible to avoid :angry: - something almost inevitable with that kind of food surplus.

 

[Pacifist46]

I guess this lucky start cancels out the bad luck I've had with starts lately . . .

 

[Poodlebrain]

My response was based on the premise that this city can be a late game production powerhouse. I was simply pointing out a method to enhance the productive capacity in the late game, and some of the consequences of the method. It was all hypothetical.

It is obvious this city could easily out grow its ability to keep the citizens healthy or happy. I don't think I'd have the patience to let this terrain be under utilized for the time it would take to grow to work all the tiles in the manner we were hypothesizing about. The beauty of Civilization is that it is a game rather than a puzzle. There are many successful solutions for a game, where there is only one successful solution for a puzzle. Your suggestions would most likely enhance the chances for success for the typical player, but they would not rule out success for someone who pursued the strategy that we were hypothesizing.

 

[CivCorpse]

Super mega production beast. You can workshop 10tiles including the cows. Plus a mine plus a levy. Moao statues and ironworks. You can run a zillion engineers if you are in state property. With a little help from worldbuilder I gave him all the health resources and all production and health buildings...ironworks and moao statues plus hanging gardens for a lil health.