Learning Deity II : Montezuma

[Doshin]

I'd like to ask another question, this time about Snaaty's article (since this has been mentioned...). Snaaty talks a bit about raising your power rating early in the game:

Always build a monument (if not creative) first in your new cities, then barracks (whip both). You will need them, to keep your power rating high enough for not being attacked. Then have your production city produce 4 chariots or axmen. This should be enough for not getting backstabbed (but don’t whip there, grow the city to happy cap).

Is this still good advice? Do barracks and a smallish force help limit the chances of being backstabbed? Is it neighbor dependent? Or insignifcant? Is it better to gift a junk city?

Maintaining good relations is obviously the determining factor in avoiding an early DOW, but it's not always possible to get into the correct religion soon enough (assuming there is a good shared religion at an early point in the game) and some civs just don't care. In recent games I've been attacked by Louis, Wang Kong, and Gilgamesh before or around about 1000 BC, without religious or border tension. Two of those civs have early game UUs, but I'm not sure whether the declarations were bad RNG rolls or a likely (if not guaranteed) consequence of my having a trifling army.

 

[Mylene]

Is this still good advice? .

Not imo

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Not imo

It is fine to build them when you have little else to do, and want to grow a size. But workers, and settlers are better.

 

[Doshin]

That's what I thought. Thanks to both.

An early DOW is the hardest element of the game to deal with, I think. Prevention works, the cure (whipped defenders) doesn't. Luckily it's not an issue on this map.

 

[Revent]

@Duckweed How did you manage to get away with building so few archers? Was it because of already known map knowledge, hence you didn't bother fog busting the north west much and focused on the east (city 2) side? You barely faced any barbs I've already killed 7 warriors/archers as well as a few animals and only 3 turns ahead..


Would you suggest building warriors in advance for Herd rule? Let's say I let my city grow to size 6 and then 3 pop whip a settler out. Whilst growing back to size 6, would building warriors for future use be good?

 

[Duckweed]

@Duckweed How did you manage to get away with building so few archers? Was it because of already known map knowledge, hence you didn't bother fog busting the north west much and focused on the east (city 2) side? You barely faced any barbs I've already killed 7 warriors/archers as well as a few animals and only 3 turns ahead..


Would you suggest building warriors in advance for Herd rule? Let's say I let my city grow to size 6 and then 3 pop whip a settler out. Whilst growing back to size 6, would building warriors for future use be good?

With the starting scout, it's easy to scout a circle way before you are ready to settle your 2nd city. You only need to guard your intended 2nd city to prevent barbarian city. Why do you want to fogbust north? Just let the barbarians come to your city when you have archers to defend. As you see, there's AI's archers around my capital, that's the main reason why barbarians were less in my game, my north archer guarding the capital has not encountered a single barbarian.

You don't need all archers for defense, warriors would be cheaper when you have enough archers to deal with barbarian. Watch carefully for William, you are his only LT in the future, there's reasonable chance he will attempt to DOW you, especially after he capture the barbarian cities. With settling copper city early enough, you might be able to take some barbarian cities.

That's what I thought. Thanks to both.

An early DOW is the hardest element of the game to deal with, I think. Luckily it's not an issue on this map.

Not exactly, power is useless to prevent early BC DOW, but has some effect on avoiding the DOW with a certain chance from DanF's post.

"Prevention works, the cure (whipped defenders) doesn't." this statement is only true for some players.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Even better than prevention is: "Offense is the best defense."

 

[Doshin]

Okay, fine:

Preventing an early AI DOW works, but the cure (whipped defenders) doesn't, unless you are a high-level Deity player who has dedicated the time and effort towards learning how to weather and recover from such an attack. Offense is, of course, the best form of defense, but Archers aren't great at attacking a city... so suck it up, build the Oracle, and get yourself some Catapults.

It's less pithy.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

How did you know one of my favorite TO targets. >.>

 

[Revent]

T62

Okay, so I finished researching pottery now, one worker has started building a cottage already. Another is roading to the new city location (fish and phants). Third is roading to the copper mine and will pre chop all the forests in the BFC to get out some quick axes.

Capital will be building another worker followed by a settler and worker. City two will start on a worker at size 2 for 10 turns until I get border pop.

Tech path, shall I go writing before AH? I think skipping AH shan't be an issue in this game.

oh and Boudica declared on Jao. She asked me to declare on him, but I refused because it's a bit early for me to war. Don't know if that was the right choice as I don't even know how close/far he is!

 

[soundjata]

My guess is you have a monument in gold city.

You should make sure the warrior is completed before copper is hooked

need more useless remark?

 

[Revent]

Not useless at all

Yes, I do have a monument in the gold city, it was just whipped.

Settler will be in position for City 3 in 1 turn and will be able to settle straight away. The worker building a road to it will be done in 4 turns. Is it better to fortify my settler there for 3 turns and wait until the road is done?

Tech wise: Is it wise to skip AH and go straight to writing? Tech discount can be a big deal, but not sure if relevant, plus, important to get horses (and iron) cos I'm planning for a Cuir rush eventually.

Re copper. I'm just hoping to build a couple of axes so I can take that city in the north east and also try to raze the barb city in the north west. But after that, I'm going to pillage the road to it to build warriors for h rule.

Is an early war something that may be required here? ie cats and axes? I'm not sure how long it will be before Willem gets into WHEOOH mode and I'm probably his only target since I'm the only neighbour. Best to take him out before he declares on me!

 

[Doshin]

I'm not sure why you'd try for an early war. You're not boxed in, have a poor production base, and have no commerce advantage (or TO) to rush to catapults for use against a heavy techer. Wilhelm has 6 cities, you have 2. Since you can't see any of his cities, you know that the closest target is at least 8 tiles away from your capital, i.e. 4 turns of movement if you pre-build roads the entire way. Wilhelm is somewhat aggressive, and might declare... but I don't know. I think he has a low unit prob which limits the chance of that happening. And there's always going to be someone who doesn't like you.

I'm also not sure why you're concerned about taking barb cities when you have plenty of good spots to settle on your own. If a barb city has four archers, you'll need six (?) axes to grab it, less if you want to snipe it following a failed AI attack. Setting up a solid core with good early settles should be your priority.

 

[Duckweed]

@Revent

I have to say again that connecting city to your capital is much less important than settling a good city earlier, for 3rd city, it only gives you 1C.

I guess that you also whipped the gold city, which is not a good move to kill a citizen which could work on the BEST tile!

Have you researched Fishing? your 1st build of the Ivory city should be a WB.

Since William is blocked by the barbarian city, your 4th city might be the wine city, but you should send a unit to check his move.

Usually, you don't need to worry about William's plot before he capture the barbarian cities. After that, he might plot on you if he is still cautious at you. You have 2 ways to deal with him

Convert to his religion or gift him a junk city to make him happy
Try to steal the eastern barbarian hill city and have some forces there.

 

[Revent]

Oh okay.

No war it is then. I just need to keep him from declaring on me

Ah, I see. Okay well thanks Duckweed

Your advice is really appreciated! I don't actually have fishing at the moment actually.

 

[Revent]

Okay, so things are actually going pretty slowly :/
Capital->Worker->Library is my current plan.
Research Aesthetics and backfill everything else.
Problem with religion is that Willem is Hindu whilst EVERYONE else is Budhist! That will be an issue! So solution is to gift Willem a junk city. Problem with that is he is CRE so his borders will bother any new city I get up!

Some help welcome because I think I've fallen too far behind (but I'm new to deity so this may be normal)!

Next turn whip worker into a Library.

 

[Knightly_]

I have two questions:
1. In my game there are three barb cities which spawned very early (cant remember date), but they have only warriors inside them (now 1280BC). Is this normal? Barbs have archery since turn 1 i`m sure on that.
2. Is wheoohrn mode only active when an AI wants to attack another AI/player or also when they want to attack barb cities?

Knightly_

 

[Knightly_]

Played a little further, there were 4 barb cities on the map (1280BC), now (575BC) the last one was captured and WvO went out of wheoohrn exactly this turn. Is it possible that barbs are considered as a civ when they have a certain amount of cities ?

Knightly_

 

[Duckweed]

I have two questions:
1. In my game there are three barb cities which spawned very early (cant remember date), but they have only warriors inside them (now 1280BC). Is this normal? Barbs have archery since turn 1 i`m sure on that.
2. Is wheoohrn mode only active when an AI wants to attack another AI/player or also when they want to attack barb cities?

Knightly_

1. No, only if you took a engineered save where the barbarians does not starts with archers.
2. Only AI/player, all AIs are in permanent war with barbarians forever.

 

[Doshin]

I have two questions:
1. In my game there are three barb cities which spawned very early (cant remember date), but they have only warriors inside them (now 1280BC). Is this normal? Barbs have archery since turn 1 i`m sure on that.
2. Is wheoohrn mode only active when an AI wants to attack another AI/player or also when they want to attack barb cities?

Knightly_

1. I don't think so? Not on Monarch and above.
2. Yes, the fist is preparing to war against other civs (AI or human) and not barbs.

Regarding WvO: that might have just been a coincidence. I swear that I've seen AIs drift in and out of WHEOOHRN mode before. My gut feeling is that low unit spammers, even in WHEEOHRN mode, don't produce a strong enough stack to dare attack and eventually lose interest. I've nothing concrete to back that up though.