Lets Play Deity: Willem

[Pangaea]

Didn't read other posts before settling, and went for...

Spoiler :

SW -> settle on PH SE

5 FPs, 9 riverside cottage spots, but barely a in sight. Some forests but not a lot. I'm therefore thinking Wheel, Pottery, maybe Writing too, before Mining. Need to put those FPs to work.

Not sure how worker timing will be, but Mining for 1 tile feels like a waste.

With CRE, a nice city might be on PH for deer, sheep and marble.

Reasonably pleased.

Turns feel terribly off now - too used to Marathon due to the G-Major game

Edit: Please put spoilers in spoiler tags, SpK. We don't want to know about other AIs, or anything else

 

[SpK]

Pangaea - right, thanks, was pretty general, but I gotta make it a habit

 

[Revent]

3240BC

Images

Spoiler :

Discussion

Spoiler :

So, as Rusten said, I now regret that gold since it wasn't THAT much of a big deal considering I'm FIN with LOTS of FP's


Plan is to get City 2 out ASAP and settle wheat pig fish followed by wine fish.

I MAY be forced to worker steal because of my blunder early on. Who do you guys think is a viable target? I'm thinking Mansa or Stalin since they are close by and it will also slow them down. But at same time, Mansa has skirmishers whilst Stalin may come and declare on me before I'm ready.

Also Settler at Size 2 or 3? I'm leaning towards 2. I worked out that settler at size 2 comes out 2 turns earlier. But I am guessing that at size 3, settler 3 would come out faster. It's a tough choice

 

[Pangaea]

Woooh, forum seems to be working Here's hoping...

Been playing this game, and it has been fun with a 'normal' game. Not going balls to the walls like in HoF, but playing more safe.

To 1AD and Lib

Spoiler :

To recap, I settled on the PH south.

Interesting neighbours, and as usual it's hard to get many cities on Deity. Managed to block east and west, and then squeezed in a total of 6 cities. Here they are at 1AD.

Fortunate that Buddhism became such a dominant religion. At some point I bribed guys into war, and they kept at it for a long while. Then Asoka finally cracked, lost two cities (one each to Justy and Stain), so I bribed Justy off him, he was already running away and I didn't want him to get a vassal. Stalin peaced out next turn, so I stopped the faux war as well.

Got the GArtist from Music, and launched a GA when I finally got Philosophy (had to self-tech in the end). Popped some GSs. Half-bulbed Edu, bulbed into Lib, and bulbed into PP.

Time for Liberalism...

Have played a bit further and have good relations to all but Asoka now. Can't recall having 4/6 AIs on Friendly before - I like middle finger diplomacy too much

Planning to backstab Mansa, though. He is teching like an absolute beast so I need to get him under control.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Pangaea:

Nice to see you having become so good . Remember when you still told me, that 300+ BPT required a HoF-map? I think that was last month .

 

[Pangaea]

@ Pangaea:

Nice to see you having become so good . Remember when you still told me, that 300+ BPT required a HoF-map? I think that was last month .

Heh, thanks Actually had a really killer capital, though, so that helped a lot.

Have finished the game during the Dark Ages. Continuation wasn't as great. RNG and the damn vassaling put me in real trouble, and hadn't I formed a PA, I'm pretty sure the game would have been lost.

To completion

Spoiler :

Mansa had a pretty sizeable stack, so I bribed Justy on him before I declared, hoping to draw his attention away.

Not much progress by 1000AD. Only taken one city and ready to take one more soon.

Justy got too powerful, so I had to bribe him off so he didn't cap Mansa.

Capital at 1000AD, with serious health issues

Dodged the capping bullet with Justy, but a few turns later Mansa capped to Ragnar instead. Despite taking several cities and not losing a single unit (cannon rule!!), Mansa would not cap to me but then suddenly did to Ragnar...

I move on to Asoka instead.

When possible, I form a Permanent Alliance with Justinian. Never done that before, but it looked pretty good, despite the increased tech costs. Due to events soon after, it is what saved the game for me.

During the war with isolated Asoka, he suddenly peace (lol) vassaled to Ragnar, who also had Mansa from the previous war. This caused a war with seemingly neverending fronts, because I had Indian cities in the south and the army split up to take several more Indian cities quickly.

New fronts
NW: Mansa and a huge Viking army (he took a city there earlier from Mansa)
NE: Ragnar's mainland
South: Mansa and later on Stalin
SW: Asoka, Mansa and Ragnar, plus Stalin later on.
SE: Ragnar, and later Stalin.

With a fractured and split up army, you can probably imagine the logistical and strategic nightmare

Thankfully Justinian was a PA!! He took forever to start moving, so I was on my own a long time, defending/attacking along all these fronts. But once Justinian's massive army started moving, he quickly tore through Mansa and eventually Ragnar's lone city in the west. That meant I could focus on Stalin in the south/north (mainland+former Asoka cities) and Ragnar in the east.

It was still a rough ride, but it actually was a LOT of fun. Moscow changed hands five(!) times, and I had to withdraw from failed invasions into Viking lands several times because his cannon and mounted tore me apart.

I something fierce, so much that the capital stood for ~85% of . Eventually I managed to hold onto Moscow, and assembled a big enough stack to invade Ragnar from both the north-east and southeast, using Moscow as staging point in the south.

A very, very tense game, that went to Infantry, MGs and Artillry. Once I had that, Ragnar couldn't keep up - though he had infantry + cannons himself in the end (I managed to mostly beat him when he had rifles, cannons and cavalry, however).


Finally it all came together, and we win Domination in 1530AD

As you can see from the Power graph, for the entire game I was fighting with inferior forces, and there are some big battles going on.

We had some war weariness issues....

Had to run a 60% slider to counteract WW and emancipation anger.

Some notes that may be useful.

CR3 Rifles and Infantry is awesome (upgrade maces)

PA can be pretty darn good. Techs cost more, but you can both do the same tech, and with Deity bonuses you can basically do nothing yourself and still tech fast if the PA is strong.

It can (unfortunately) be pretty open to abuse. I got 160 per turn from my PA partner and could probably have got a lot more if I wanted.

You get the bonuses from Wonders your partner builds. For instance, suddenly I got 2 free XP for units, plus gold from religious buildings, despite not controlling those wonders myself.



Thanks for a fun map Revent

 

[Seraiel]

You're aware, that getting that much from your PA-partner screws his economy, which shoots you in your own foot, right?

 

[Pangaea]

You're aware, that getting that much from your PA-partner screws his economy, which shoots you in your own foot, right?

Naturally, but this time it didn't. He still teched fast with a solid economy. I could have got twice that and he still would not be at deficit - though that would have crippled a good deal more If that AI (keeping name out for non-spoiler reasons) hadn't been so strong, it would have hurt him more. This does perhaps show that PA can be open to abuse however. It basically meant I didn't lose money at 100%, and even when I turned off research we still teched fast due to his Deity bonuses.

Sometimes he simply gave me stuff as well, without me asking, which was nice.

 

[Pangaea]

1200 AD save attached, looking for advice. Obviously massive spoilers for those playing/thinking about playing the map, so I might have to wait if I want a second opinion...

Spoiler :

What do I do now?

Stalin has just been capped. I was planning on going after Ragnar next, but I only have half his military strength. He's not even at PP yet, and I still have RP as proprietary tech, so he's a fair way from Rifling; but he does have Grenadiers. I've only got 25 Cuirs, and even though some of them are pretty well promoted by now, I think rolling into Ragnar with Cuirs could end badly.

I'm 5-6 turns from Rifling, but then I need a big lump of gold to upgrade to Cavalry, which is gonna take another 10 turns...or flogging off replaceable parts on the cheap and pushing the AI closer to rifles, which I don't like doing. I guess they're going to be there soon anyway...

Maybe I should turn my attentions to Justin instead, who's weaker? I'm still edgy about going in with 25 Cuirs by this stage of the game, though.

Vassal Musa is getting Steel in 8 turns. I could flog RP for his gold reserves and then trade Rifling for it. Pretty dangerous to give rifling to a known tech whore, but I don't see any AIs with anything Musa wants. Plus if I'm going cannons, I'm pretty much saying that I don't care about AI rifles anyway because enough cannons will chew them up. Maybe this is a safer bet than a cavalry charge 15 turns down the line?

Oh, and the Heroic Epic. I've still not built it I've got 3 GGs sitting in my capital doing nothing Where should I put it? Timbuktu seems a good choice, but it keeps revolting and could flip. I'd have gifted it back if it wasn't for Notre Dame. Nowhere else really seems up to the job, though.

Any other pointers appreciated

Looked at the save

Spoiler :

First off, since you don't have health issues, I'd trade away health for +22 gpt.

Do you know what forces the others have?

Technically Ragnar is at war w/AC, but he is strong, most likely with tons of upgraded Grenadiers. Cuirs agains grens inside culture defended cities is going to hurt, no doubt about it. Considering Ragnar is technically at war, he probably won't (for the time being) backstab you if you DOW Justinian. War on Justy will hurt too, but you'll hopefully have more success there, provided he doesn't have a giant army, like he did in my game.Provided Ragnar stays out, due to his faux war with AC, you'll have the east safe to focus all forces on the west. Your vassals are also in that area and should be able to assist, at least a little.

Because Asoka is a vassal of Ragnar and Ragnar has a city in the west (like he also did in my game, though that was a Malian city), you will have a two front war when taking on Ragnar. That will be tough. I therefore think Justinian is better. Whether you can roll over him, however, depends on what he has, and that Ragnar stays in war so he is much less likely to join the war on you.

I actually built the HE in my capital as it was the only city not whipped to nothingness, and with Buro it had decent amount of hammers. I settled on the PH, however, so my empire looked a little different. Timbuktu is a great spot for the HE (green hills, workshops and farmed FPs), but the revolt chance is a kick in the nuts.

Take this with a grain of salt as I've only looked at the save for 5-10 mins after all, but I'd heal up, move forces to the forest (in Mali) NW of Angora, and take that city on turn 1 of the war. Then roll westwards unless he's able to stop you.

I usually don't do this, but maybe it makes sense to give back St Petersburg and Rostov to Stalin here. He can use them better than you, you won't have revolt chances there, and you'll have protection from your core when taking on Ragnar later.

Hope this can be of some help. And now when the site is finally back up, maybe you'll get more feedback as well. Unless you have already finished the game ofc

 

[Pangaea]

A little bit about my early game, like starting tech choices.

Spoiler :

Started with Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Mining -> AH

During that chain I found out barbs was a non-issue because there was so little land, so I didn't need early BW or AH.

As I recall, the timing worked very well here, and the worker could start the first FP cottage after farming the corn without losing any turns. He may have roaded the corn first, but that's it.

Teched Aesthetics after AH, traded for Alpha, then backfilled, including BW.

Yeah, checking the closest save, he roaded the corn first, and started the first cottage in T20.

Roading the corn isn't necessary ofc, but it's better than roading anything else because I need to be close to the FPs so he can start cottaging them instantly when Pottery is online.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Pangaea:

You imo should have built a Farm instead of the Road. It's not necessarily needed to cottage Floodplains, and Farms are great tiles in the beginning for Settler production, other production and general growth. I know the capital does have a lot of , but I often built 1-2 Farms still, and find that they're useful for an extremely long time. In the beginning, one i. e. wants to run two Scientists in the capital, and that alone reduces the by 4, so the capital would only have a surplus of +7, which imo is not too much.

 

[Pangaea]

With so much food I didn't want to farm there. Love cottaging FP, so I'll do that unless the city needs more food. The whole idea of getting pottery was to cottage, so farming FPs was never on the agenda.

May actually have produced the first GS in a different city; don't recall.

 

[Seraiel]

I also love cottaging FPs, especially with FIN, but what I'd like you to see is, that an improvement can be temporarily good. The alternative with the Road gives you a 1T earlier 2nd city at best, the Farm however gives you more production in a city that needs to produce the major part of the Settlers and also a lot of buildings, it gives you an easier time at producing a Great Scientist, and first Great Scientist from capital is the fastest way usually, and there stands nothing against replacing the Farm. Getting two additional Workerturns for the Road later is easy, but 'til then, the Farm will have produced a great benefit.

 

[Pangaea]

Really don't want to split hairs over such a tiny, tiny detail.

 

[Seraiel]

Sry, but that's no tiny detail for me. If you don't want to get advice from me to your screens it's ok.

 

[Revent]

Sorry for my lack of play. Just got back from a holiday in Istanbul and flew off to Italy and Switzerland! Am back now so will post an update soon.