Let's Play Deity Ashurbanipal

[AdmiralPrice]

So this is one of my first attempts at a Deity game, and I decided to make it an LP so that people can give me feedback as to my mistakes etc. Do check it out and comment!


Link to video.

 

[AdmiralPrice]

Part 2!


Link to video.

 

[Tich]

Liking your videos so far. Solid commentary, good pacing, nice flow, etc.

With respect to your predicament, I do have a few comments. First of all, I think that opening Liberty on Continents is generally a big mistake. BnW does a good job of splitting people evenly across 2 big ones (in my experience anyways) and so it's very unlikely that you'll ever get the ~6 cities required to really put the bonuses to use. I'm not saying this in hindsight; your experience is fairly typical in my mind. Tradition is just a much strong option on average. I realize that this doesn't help you right now, but hey, keep it in mind for next time.

Moreover, I think that it was a mistake to forgo the Shrine. Getting a religion is stupidly impossible, I agree, but getting a Pantheon with a Shrine alone is perfectly do-able. You could have gotten food from camps, 10% growth, culture from plantations, anything. Even if you would have lost it eventually, hey, that's fine. Shrines cost you ~6 turns of production but they usually pay themselves off.

With respect to your current predicament, your best bet is likely to pay people into war. Washington forward expanded on Morocco. It's possible that you'll be able to pay one to wage war with the other. That would move Washington's units out of position and you would be able to crush his forward bases from there. Still, it's entirely possible that neither player will accept a deal.

In that case, I think that your best bet would be to wage war with Washington but to play it safe and slow. Let him come to you and smash his armies against your cities with Bows. Hide your Towers for now and wait for him to lose a ton of melee units as you shoot them down from behind your walls. Once you've thinned his army out going on the offense will be much easier. His cities are on flat terrian so nuking them with Siege Towers should be a piece of cake.

Try and pillage/steal (with a Citadel) his horses and iron when you do engage him. It'll weaken his Horsemen/Swordsmen fairly significantly. The horses in Philly are excepinally close to you borders an so taking them out hould be a piece of cake.

 

[AdmiralPrice]

Heya Tich! Thanks for the comments. I do think you're right on both accounts. Having played a couple of Deity openings turns in a few other personal games to get a hang on things, I can see now that the AI expands so fast that it's almost impossible to fill the space with Liberty (unless the AIs get into an early war, which is really a flip of the coin and not something that can be planned on by turn twenty when you have to make the decision). You're also completely right about the shrine. It would have been something worth going for, if only to get a Pantheon. Things to keep in mind for my next game.

I'll keep those things in mind when I fight Washington. What I'm afraid of is that, so far, he's been in city expand mode. The moment war is declared on him, he's going to switch to unit production and kick out a bunch of troops. If he doesn't make a advance on my capital immediately, I can see him swarming me with insurmountable numbers in a few turns, whereas if I attack aggressively he's only replacing lost units.

And not sure if Morocco will attack him, but it's worth a shot! And it's a good idea on pillaging/stealing the iron and horses. Especially if I can quick strike Philly, I'll take out most of his horses and Iron in one shot, and that'll make the rest of the war that much easier.

 

[Tich]

Waging war with Washington isn't going to get any easier. You have your army and it's costing your gold and right now it isn't doing anything. Eventually your Siege Towers and Comp Bows will become useless since you're going to keep falling behind further and further in tech. You're also sitting on 2 bases and so your everything is pretty terrible atm. Science, food, production, it's all miserable right now. The cheating AI can hold out way longer you can. The onus is you to make something happen and to make it happen fast.

What I will say is that computers are terrible. If you do DOW him and sit your archers behind your city then we he will literally suicide his army on your city as you shoot him down with ranged units. Computers are God-awful when it comes to war. He will run out of stuff and you will be able to take his cities with siege towers. They basically 2 shot flatland stuff at this stage of the game after all.

Still, again, try getting Washington to DOW Morocco or vice-versa for a turn or 2. There's a good chance that if you check every turn while massing your army that one of them will eventually offer something up. At that point Washington will be super easy to take out since his entire army will move out of position.

 

[AdmiralPrice]

And the war begins. . .


Link to video.

 

[Tich]

I think that you're overestimating the speed at which the free Settler policy comes. You seem to be under the impression that you could have powered ~4 cities out before Washington planted most of his. That's generally not going to be the case when you start that close to a Deity AI and you both expand towards one another. I think that if you were to re-watch your game you would see that you really didn't expand "way too slowly" or whatever. It might have been a bit suboptimal, that's entirely possible, but it's not like you were sitting around for 15 turns not doing anything. You can see in video 1 that Philly was planted and he was buying his way to the cows long before you hit turn 40 and had your cheap Settler policy ready to go. I suppose that you could have built a Settler instead of a Worker immediately as it finished but like where would you send it? Right below Philly and South East of Washington? That seems like a fairly ambitious expansion location. You really didn't do much wrong this game I don't think.

This is why I dislike Continents in general. It always seems to be 2 moderately sized ones with 4 civs each and relatively scarce resources. The odds that you'll be able to found ~6 cities is just so low in my experience. That's why I think that opening Tradition is basically always going to be the right thing to do. It may very well be wrong a small % of the time but Liberty is going to be mistake more often then it'll be actively better than Tradition. Given those option sets I'd rather slam Tradition and be right most of the time than risk picking a Policy that could easily backfire hard. Tradition will never bad even if you do build 5-6 cities but I mean Liberty can just be God-awful (like it is in your current game).

I think that the war is going about as good as it ever was going to. Washington was indeed willing to DOW Morocco like I thought he would. He didn't move his units as far as we both would have hoped but I mean you can't control that type of thing. Bribing him to DOW someone else was the right thing to do. What came after boiled down to luck (bad in this instance). He is suiciding most of his units into your cities as I previously alluded to but now his army of Knights and Comp Bows are going to get annoying. I do think that you probably needed to use that Scout to pillage his Horses as soon as you DOW'd him. You would have lost the Scout, sure, but it would have been worthwhile in my mind.

Either way this game does look pretty grim. Even if you do take Philly or whatever it's not like you're suddenly in a strong position. You may still squeak out a win in the end, it's certainly possible, it just seems unlikely (unless the AI is much worse than I give them credit for). I don't think that you did anything particularly wrong and I'm not saying that it's necessarily your fault. I'm a peaceful player so I don't know enough about early wars to say one way or another though. I just like to whether them with Walls and Bows while my cities grow instead of trying to worry about capturing cities heh.

Anyways, great vid and great content as always.

P.S. Random rant, but this is exactly why I don't think that Assyria is a top tier civ like some people seem to suggest. I dunno, I don't see the appeal to these kind of ulta early all-in builds.

 

[Comadevil]

I think that the war is going about as good as it ever was going to. Washington was indeed willing to DOW Morocco like I thought he would. He didn't move his units as far as we both would have hoped but I mean you can't control that type of thing. Bribing him to DOW someone else was the right thing to do.

Well the bad luck was also, that there are three city states between the US army and Marocco. And the borders of those city states leave almost no neutral tiles. I noticed the AI is not smart with moving around such obstacles via water etc.

 

[Tich]

Well the bad luck was also, that there are three city states between the US army and Marocco. And the borders of those city states leave almost no neutral tiles. I noticed the AI is not smart with moving around such obstacles via water etc.

Oh for sure. Terrain and whatnot trips the AI up all the time.

 

[AdmiralPrice]

Link to video.

 

[AdmiralPrice]

I think you're right in most or all respects, Tich. With Washington's expansion as it was and being surrounded by three city states in locations that I probably needed, there was little I could do there. Getting a third and fourth city up would have been very, very difficult, no matter how I did it. Going settler in place of the worker would have set me back in happiness, tech, etc. It was a rough spot. That being said, going Tradition over Liberty is probably a better idea for continents. As is hoping and praying that the civ right next to you doesn't go Liberty and city spam at a rate you can't ever hope to keep pace with. I'm also chiefly a peaceful player, which is why I wanted to do something different and early war with Ashur. I've tried multiple games after this, and it seems that early warring is very, very difficult in BNW.

 

[Tich]

I'm also a peaceful player. I hate warring. To give you an idea I open Tradition 100% of the time on all map types as all civs unless I'm testing specific builds to abuse certain mechanics. I think that opening Tradition is the right call 90% of the time to point where I'd rather be right most of the time and accept that I may have a made a small mistake every ~12 games or so where I could have maybe expanded a bit more. Even then I'm never actively sad that I opened Tradition because it's never going to be that bad.

I think that Assy is probably best used on Pangea where you'll often have a nearby neighbor who isn't massing a giant army. You want to engage a peaceful wonder spammer, not a warmonger. Continents maps always feel so cramped to me and you never have those situations where you're surrounded by 2-3 civs within ~15 tiles.

 

[Brave New Name]

That's why I think that opening Tradition is basically always going to be the right thing to do. It may very well be wrong a small % of the time but Liberty is going to be mistake more often then it'll be actively better than Tradition. Given those option sets I'd rather slam Tradition and be right most of the time than risk picking a Policy that could easily backfire hard. Tradition will never bad even if you do build 5-6 cities but I mean Liberty can just be God-awful (like it is in your current game).

Really depends on your Civ. Poland, Rome, The Maya, and other wide Civs can benefit from Liberty, and even settle enough cities late to take liberty if they are planning on a early Deity war (Pre-Renaissance is early for war on Deity imo). Most warmongers (Ashurbanipal, Shaka, Sweden) really benefit from Tradition or a Tradition/Honor split.

You cannot prepare for war on Deity and REX, at least not if you want to be in the medieval before someone picks an ideology.

Liberty can be good with as few as 4 cities due to the speed at which you can get them out, but unless I want to go heavy religious or spam a UB, on Continents or just vs Deity AI in general Tradition is a lot safer, and if you are going to war it is the only choice.

 

[Tich]

Really depends on your Civ. Poland, Rome, The Maya, and other wide Civs can benefit from Liberty, and even settle enough cities late to take liberty if they are planning on a early Deity war (Pre-Renaissance is early for war on Deity imo). Most warmongers (Ashurbanipal, Shaka, Sweden) really benefit from Tradition or a Tradition/Honor split.

You cannot prepare for war on Deity and REX, at least not if you want to be in the medieval before someone picks an ideology.

Liberty can be good with as few as 4 cities due to the speed at which you can get them out, but unless I want to go heavy religious or spam a UB, on Continents or just vs Deity AI in general Tradition is a lot safer, and if you are going to war it is the only choice.

Maya and Poland are my favorite civs. Maya is an amazing tall civ and I'd always open Tradition as them. People assume Pyramid= ICS enabler but in reality it's just a decent faith generator that will ensure a religion. Massing them doesn't really do anything significant. Use the early GS for an Academy and just avoid getting your Merchant and Engineer for as long as possible to generate GSes. Just get your Artists and GG (steal a luxury tech from a CS if possible) and whatnot. Some of the fastest GnK science wins ever came from Maya and they only got buffed in BnW now that GPs have different pools.

Poland is in a league of its own. They're God tier. They can go Tradition opener -> Liberty to free Settler tech -> finish Tradition and then like finish Rationalism and get the good stuff in Order or even grab Consulates. They're God tier and you can't treat them like a normal civ.

Rome is a joke ICS civ. 25% of 2 is basically nothing. Your 1 pop cities will have 1-2 production and so the bonus won't do anything relevant. It'll still take a million turns to build things. The problem with Rome is that ICS requires gold and happiness and a religion (which covers happiness). Rome isn't good at any of those things. %-based production and UUs offer very little to ICS strategies. If the bonus was like a flat +2 production, sure, that would be something. As it stands it's 25% of "very little" which is going to be "very little."