Let's Talk Deity (dominant strategies, openings, etc.)

[Lily_Lancer]

I'll post my start and play on Immortal. I'll try Builder -> Settler -> Slinger X2. I guess that's what you mean? What do you build in your second and third cities first? What's their build order usually? Slinger -> Monument -> Slinger? Or Archer I guess.

Usually it depends on how much troop you want. Early troops are always the most valuable.

I think 10 Archer is good enough for a diety archer rush, then you build 10~15 chariots to upgrade for knight. Maybe that help you conquer the whole world.

 

[JamesCivFan]

Usually it depends on how much troop you want. Early troops are always the most valuable.

I think 10 Archer is good enough for a diety archer rush, then you build 10~15 chariots to upgrade for knight. Maybe that help you conquer the whole world.

Thanks, I'll try that. However, I do believe that Macedon benefits GREATLY from building its unique building in the Encampment district (Βασιλικοί Παίδες/Basilikoi Paides), as it will greatly help with science when building units to fight your wars. In that sense, it's usually best to just build your own encampment, rather than banking on the AI having one. Not to mention, the Encampment gives you two Inspirations at once, so it's great in every aspect for the Greeks.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Thanks, I'll try that. However, I do believe that Macedon benefits GREATLY from building its unique building in the Encampment district (Βασιλικοί Παίδες/Basilikoi Paides), as it will greatly help with science when building units to fight your wars. In that sense, it's usually best to just build your own encampment, rather than banking on the AI having one. Not to mention, the Encampment gives you two Inspirations at once, so it's great in every aspect for the Greeks.

Then I think you're having the wrong belief.

Macedon encampment is good in mid-game when you have naval+100% policy. But not for early game since you waste dozens of hammers constructing nonsense, (Come on, encampment +UB in one city cost almost 3 Macedon UUs' hammer! ) then finally get a few science back when a normal player has captured dozens of cities.

 

[JamesCivFan]

OK, I tried going for Worker -> Slinger -> Settler in the capital for the simple reason that I captured a Settler from the Kongo very early in the game. This delayed the Settler only 4 turns and I think it was way better than going for a 3rd city 4 turns earlier. After all, a newly built city needs way more than just 4 turns to produce anything. That Slinger held its ground vs. the Kongolese units who came my way, got an early promotion, and gave me the Archery Eureka. I had to build a Scout around T30, though because you absolutely need to explore everything as soon as possible. Neglecting a Scout completely is something I will never, ever agree with (waiting on your opinion, though, @Lily_Lancer).

About the Encampment: I went for a middle-ground solution, after all. While I was getting close to Kongo's capital, I saw that they were constructing an Encampment. They finished it right when I was 2 turns away from capturing the city. After that, it took 10 turns to build Basilikoi Paides. That's when I did most of my Heavy Chariot building. I hit Stirrups on T72 and Machinery on T86, on the same turn with the Mercenaries civic.

Here's how the game looks like, right now: http://imgur.com/a/0CAwJ

I've already started producing my wave of 5-charges Builders, my Science output is poor (but it's a Domination game and I will be getting Eureka after Eureka from the cities I conquer anyway), same with my GPT. I'll obviously hit the British who are right to the south and I'll try to get a nice peace deal.

Now, where to go next from here?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

This would be banned under Civ5 HOF rules:

Exploit involving trading for Lump Sums of Gold
Systematically making and breaking agreements for lump sums of gold with the AIs is not allowed. It is considered an exploit when there is a clear pattern of activity beyond normal play.

Examples of tactics used:

• Repeatedly selling a resource (luxury, strategic, etc.) and pillaging or allowing Barbarians or other civs to pillage the resource or trade route to break the deal.
• Repeatedly selling a resource (luxury, strategic, etc.) and declaring war or otherwise bringing about a war that breaks the deal. (i.e. a phony war just to break the deal.)
• Repeatedly selling Gold per Turn (GPT) and declaring war or otherwise bringing about a war that breaks the deal. (i.e. a phony war just to break the deal.)
• Repeatedly selling Cities and declaring war or otherwise bringing about a war so you can take them back. (i.e. low risk, low cost war just retrieve the cities for resale to another civ.)

Most of what I do is not according to HOF rules. Infact I would go as far and say that HOF rules are counterintuitive to learning the game. I often reload, sometimes replay maps, sometimes play with map knowledge, sometimes not.

To me, games are just lines of code, essentially applied mathematics. Its a lot of fun to take it apart, put it back together, like a child. The actual playing often is not even as interesting as the theorizing/strategizing.

 

[Victoria]

100% there @yung.carl.jung I often play the GOTM but am more interested in the mechanics.

Like workers... their cost escalates but not hugely so. Sometimes the value of that extra early worker outweighs the bad bits. Tile purchasing is another area... 2 65 gold spends early may be better than a worker.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Worker cost increase linear which mean you are very unlikely to actually gain anything by delaying worker production to later game then you can run stuff such as serfdom. Likely you will lose resources because every turn you work an unimproved tile you basically lose one resource or more resources per turn. Obviously there could be better ways to spend your production and gold than building workers but delaying workers just for the sake of serfdom is tricky to justify.

Bonus resources harvesting is interesting because the yield equation use the same formula as the district cost which mean no matter there you are in the game you should always be able to build a district by harvesting the same amount of resources. Super teching or super culture to increase harvesting values with wonder building (wonders don't get more expensive with tech) is also something you can do if you want to get some critical wonders.

One question I think we should ask is if we should start with district first or settler first. The earlier you get out districts the cheaper they will be (yes it depend on tech) and it do make a difference if you can get out a good early campus. It also allow you to focus a bit more on the capital and build up it to a level in which it can support new cities better. On the other hand there are reasons to go settler first such as the new city do generate some production and allow for a new set of buildings + it is easier to grow a large population with several cities. More cities also allow for more monuments which is a big source of culture in the early game. But getting campus first may allow quicker access to very helpful techs such as apprenticeship.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

100% there @yung.carl.jung I often play the GOTM but am more interested in the mechanics.

Like workers... their cost escalates but not hugely so. Sometimes the value of that extra early worker outweighs the bad bits. Tile purchasing is another area... 2 65 gold spends early may be better than a worker.

Interesting you bring that up. I used to value workers so highly that I actually built one before Granny or Monument in almost every city. Now I dont do that anymore, I see the value of getting policies faster, +2 actually makes a huge difference. Yet I still think workers are easily the best thing to build in terms of yields, even more so if you have production or +use bonus.

I honestly think often times a perfectly timed Feudalism can make or break a game. Though especially in my domination assisted SVs I often dont even find time to fit workers into my queue.

Worker cost increase linear which mean you are very unlikely to actually gain anything by delaying worker production to later game then you can run stuff such as serfdom. Likely you will lose resources because every turn you work an unimproved tile you basically lose one resource or more resources per turn. Obviously there could be better ways to spend your production and gold than building workers but delaying workers just for the sake of serfdom is tricky to justify.

Bonus resources harvesting is interesting because the yield equation use the same formula as the district cost which mean no matter there you are in the game you should always be able to build a district by harvesting the same amount of resources. Super teching or super culture to increase harvesting values with wonder building (wonders don't get more expensive with tech) is also something you can do if you want to get some critical wonders.

One question I think we should ask is if we should start with district first or settler first. The earlier you get out districts the cheaper they will be (yes it depend on tech) and it do make a difference if you can get out a good early campus. It also allow you to focus a bit more on the capital and build up it to a level in which it can support new cities better. On the other hand there are reasons to go settler first such as the new city do generate some production and allow for a new set of buildings + it is easier to grow a large population with several cities. More cities also allow for more monuments which is a big source of culture in the early game. But getting campus first may allow quicker access to very helpful techs such as apprenticeship.

I used to always value Campus/Encampment over the pre-Early Empire settler, but having tried it out its also a very strong strategy. Hard to tell really, I think it depends on the capitals tiles.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Builder cost follow this formula: Builder cost =50+4*PB (PB = previous builders, how many builders you have built previously).

A builder give at minimum 3 charges and if we assume each charge is worth one yield and every yield have equal value we can calculate the return on the builder with this simple formula

Builder cost/(yield*builder charges)

For our first builder and each tile give 1 yield it will take 17 turns to get back the cost of that builder. With the 30% production policies builders will give a significant shorter return and it get much better with serfdom. But delaying builders as I said before sounds doubtful.

There is something to be said about mass settling and harvesting into campuses given that the formula for harvesting yield and district cost is exaclty the same which mean at any point in the game you can always build a district by harvesting the same amount of resources. Buildings can then be built or even purchased and unlike district their cost is not effected technology/civic. This can be used to mass produce any district in the game thus a useful trick if you focus on a specific resource or great person type because in such case the quantity of a district is very important.

District cost (production)
=[60*(1+9*Larger of [100*(Number of Techs/67 OR Number of Civics/50)]/100]

Resource/Feature Harvest yield (food, gold, production)
Basevalue..25fp/50gold for bonus ...20 for features
=Base Value*(1+9*Larger of [100*(Number of Techs/67 OR Number of Civics/50)]/100)

It basically say if you have 3 forest, 6 jungels or 3 production bonus resources you can build a district just by harvesting.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

OK, I tried going for Worker -> Slinger -> Settler in the capital for the simple reason that I captured a Settler from the Kongo very early in the game. This delayed the Settler only 4 turns and I think it was way better than going for a 3rd city 4 turns earlier. After all, a newly built city needs way more than just 4 turns to produce anything. That Slinger held its ground vs. the Kongolese units who came my way, got an early promotion, and gave me the Archery Eureka. I had to build a Scout around T30, though because you absolutely need to explore everything as soon as possible. Neglecting a Scout completely is something I will never, ever agree with (waiting on your opinion, though, @Lily_Lancer).

About the Encampment: I went for a middle-ground solution, after all. While I was getting close to Kongo's capital, I saw that they were constructing an Encampment. They finished it right when I was 2 turns away from capturing the city. After that, it took 10 turns to build Basilikoi Paides. That's when I did most of my Heavy Chariot building. I hit Stirrups on T72 and Machinery on T86, on the same turn with the Mercenaries civic.

Here's how the game looks like, right now: http://imgur.com/a/0CAwJ

I've already started producing my wave of 5-charges Builders, my Science output is poor (but it's a Domination game and I will be getting Eureka after Eureka from the cities I conquer anyway), same with my GPT. I'll obviously hit the British who are right to the south and I'll try to get a nice peace deal.

Now, where to go next from here?

I think you are behind for ~20T now. Usually as a normal civ at T86 we have captured at least 2 capitals and researching at ~80/T, having ~10 cities(without early settler capture). Since Macedon is stronger than most other Civs, Macedon shall do better.



Macedon is a fantastic Civ, once in a game when I was attacked by 3 barbarians and a nearby America at the first 30T and built and lost a lot of troops . At 30T I only have 2 archers and a capital, almost 15T behind the original pace.
In that game, by T86 I got 70 science per turn and 11 cities, with 10 Knights and a classical GG.


Let's figure out what you have done wrongly

"This delayed the Settler only 4 turns",

In that 4T you lose almost 30 hammers 150%*(tile 2+policy 1+worked tile 2)*4 and a population, that is to say, almost an archer! That's only the delay. You shall re-consider whether having a slinger some turns earlier values one more archer or not. Usually that slinger is needed only when we have to defend early barbarians.


"I had to build a Scout around T30"

What's the use of exploring everything? Tribs and City States Discovery must have been done by other civs (if you're at Deity level).

The only use is, to make faraway AI notice your war weariness? Also, it almost cost an archer!



After that, it took 10 turns to build Basilikoi Paides

Pls finish your main land army BEFORE building your UB in every city. You can build your 2nd army and navy with UB.

I hit Stirrups on T72 and Machinery on T86, on the same turn with the Mercenaries civic.

That's not that bad, but consider you're Macedon, I think the proper time maybe T70. Also, Machinery is not that important since you spent all your money on Knights, after your initial rush archers actually serve as units that help you defend the barbs and garrison for amenty while Knights being the main unit.

Also, as Macedon, pls use your horseman UU instead of chariots.

For the next step, I think you shall expand your UB and build more units. It's clear that your army is not enough. Maybe because you wasted your money on Crossbows instead of Knights.
Since it comes to the Medival that you cannot have very cheap units, you shall first build your UBs then units.

Although your progress may be better than most other people here, I'd like to score a 0 to your opening, if not negative.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Most of what I do is not according to HOF rules. Infact I would go as far and say that HOF rules are counterintuitive to learning the game. I often reload, sometimes replay maps, sometimes play with map knowledge, sometimes not.

To me, games are just lines of code, essentially applied mathematics. Its a lot of fun to take it apart, put it back together, like a child. The actual playing often is not even as interesting as the theorizing/strategizing.

You mean there's still trade bug that you can get infinite amount of money in Civ6? That's very interesting. Can you give some detailed expression?

 

[JamesCivFan]

While I appreciate the rating, let me point out 2 things where I believe you are wrong:

In that 4T you lose almost 30 hammers 150%*(tile 2+policy 1+worked tile 2)*4 and a population, that is to say, almost an archer! That's only the delay. You shall re-consider whether having a slinger some turns earlier values one more archer or not. Usually that slinger is needed only when we have to defend early barbarians.

Not only are barbarians raging in Civ VI, but I had to face the Kongolese army as well, since I declared early on them. So I do believe building a Slinger there was mandatory and as I said, it paid off big time.

What's the use of exploring everything? Tribs and City States Discovery must have been done by other civs (if you're at Deity level).

The only use is, to make faraway AI notice your war weariness? Also, it almost cost an archer!

Exploring everything is vital because you get trading partners (I had Poland come into a Joint War vs. England just now and we declared Friendship, since my next target it gonna be Persia, England's ally. Also, getting intel on the land allows you to plan your city locations and distric locations a lot better. But the most important thing is meeting City States, who are potential allies, giving you bonuses you otherwise wouldn't have. Not to mention, having spent just 4 turns on that Scout allowing me to explore half the map, getting 2 Eurekas from Goody Huts and meeting one CS that no one else hasn't met FAR outweighs that +1 Archer in every single way conceivable. I think your way of thinking is a bit too focused on building units for war, when in reality you should be thinking more short-term, especially in the early game. If you make clever use of your Archers, you rarely need 6 of them to rush an AI, even though 6 is considered by many to be an optimal number, from what I see around here.
Also remember that you won't be moving your Archers from the turn you make them, till the end of the game. There are bound to be at least 3-4 turns (that's how much the Scout took to build) where you need to wait for an important tech to upgrade units (in this case Stirrups for Knights) so, not having a Scout in those turns is rather silly. You can easily build that 1 more Archer while waiting, AND get it into position for the next war.

I am wondering though. What's a 10/10 opening for you, since you rated mine with 0 "if not negative"? That language was quite the arrogant one, so I am eager to listen to your opening here.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

While I appreciate the rating, let me point out 2 things where I believe you are wrong:

.

For me, a proper number of archer is 10,or even 15.
I don't care about whether I can capture it or not, I care about the speed of my capture. You can certainly use 5 archers to capture an early capital, but that 10 archer player captured all that AI's city as well as a city-state in the same time period.

I can't quite explain what a 10/10 opening look like, but if you follow my instructions I think maybe 6/10 is easily achievable.
If you believe I'm wrong , you can always prove yourself in GOTM games.

 

[JamesCivFan]

For me, a proper number of archer is 10,or even 15.
I don't care about whether I can capture it or not, I care about the speed of my capture. You can certainly use 5 archers to capture an early capital, but that 10 archer player captured all that AI's city as well as a city-state in the same time period.

I can't quite explain what a 10/10 opening look like, but if you follow my instructions I think maybe 6/10 is easily achievable.
If you believe I'm wrong , you can always prove yourself in GOTM games.

Which 10 archer player and where? I'd sure like to see what spamming Archers can do on Deity. Also I don't play GoTM games for two reasons:
1) I am not ready for Deity yet.
2) They don't allow you to use CQUI and that's a deal-breaker for me.

Last but not least, how can you rate something when you yourself cannot explain EXACTLY what a perfect example of that something is? That's contradicting yourself.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

You mean there's still trade bug that you can get infinite amount of money in Civ6? That's very interesting. Can you give some detailed expression?

Im sorry, but last time I tested this was with a different patch. I havent played in months, just came back a few days ago

Also, regarding building scouts.. By not investing a few early hammers into a scout you give up on potentially meeting ~8-10CS depending on map size. All these CS grant quests, a lot of these you will do passively. Essentially we are talking about incredibly valuable district boni and more city states suzerains to pick from. As you well know some Suzerain bonuses can be almost game breaking while others are trash, so knowing which CS are on the map is extremely important.

Scouting gives you incredible potential for little investmeint, albeit at a curcial time. To just sweept that aside is short-sighted. If you are going Horse rush anyway 1 Scout might be sufficient.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Which 10 archer player and where? I'd sure like to see what spamming Archers can do on Deity. Also I don't play GoTM games for two reasons:
1) I am not ready for Deity yet.
2) They don't allow you to use CQUI and that's a deal-breaker for me.

Last but not least, how can you rate something when you yourself cannot explain EXACTLY what a perfect example of that something is? That's contradicting yourself.

I can tell you the result of 10/10, but to achieve it I think maybe I shall say too much. You shall try yourself.
Consider you're playing a normal Civ, under GOTM rules that you cannot replay turns.
Say it blank civ, with no UU,UA or UB.

what a 10/10 opening look like
By 100T
RV: Finished
DV: Finished
CV: Only a few turns to go
SV:
City Number: >25
Science: >300 Per turn, Finished Industrialization and Banking, and maybe something more like Printing and SciMeth
Culture: >200 Per turn, Finished Civic Engineering
Wonder: Finished Great Zimbabwe, with >15 Campuses and Hub/Harbor.

I think this is what a perfect opening look like.

You know, with strong CIvs like Aztec, it is common to finish SV around T120~130.
For blank Civs, <140T SV is 10/10.

That is what you get if you want to talk about a perfect example.

Considering people make mistakes, a 7/10 opening seems more reasonable. (Baseline opening for blank Civ)
By 100T

City Number: ~15
Science: ~120 Per turn, Finished Banking and Cartography
Culture: ~100 Per turn, Finished Exploration and Guilds.

These are based on blank Civs. If you're playing something strong, such as Macedon, pls replace the 100T to 85~90T, that's where you're at.

Also, certainly I think around T100 is not "opening", but absolutely "mid-late" game instead since most games last fewer than 150 turns if you want to play domination.

I attach one of my Macedon savings. That was the first time I played with that Civ(so absolutely I made lots of mistakes), also I lost tens of turns at the beginning, so I consider it as a 4/10 opening

 

[JamesCivFan]

Alright. I saw that you had about 15 units (less than 20. I counted exactly 15, maybe I missed a couple ones) on T90. 43 science per turn which is nothing impressive (I had about 60 or so at that point), were at war with the Americans and had already conquered quite a few cities from them. This was actually worse than my milestones.

Do you remember what your BO was for the capital and at least your 2nd city?
What about your Civics of choice and techs? You cannot call mine a 0/10 opening and this one a 4/10 opening. By your standards and by numbers of yields alone, mine was slightly superior, so I'd say it was a 5/10. Now of course, not all games are the same so you can never directly compare unless you are playing the exact same game.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Alright. I saw that you had about 15 units (less than 20. I counted exactly 15, maybe I missed a couple ones) on T90. 43 science per turn which is nothing impressive (I had about 60 or so at that point), were at war with the Americans and had already conquered quite a few cities from them. This was actually worse than my milestones.

Do you remember what your BO was for the capital and at least your 2nd city?
What about your Civics of choice and techs? You cannot call mine a 0/10 opening and this one a 4/10 opening. By your standards and by numbers of yields alone, mine was slightly superior, so I'd say it was a 5/10. Now of course, not all games are the same so you can never directly compare unless you are playing the exact same game.

That was the game which I was attacked by 3 barb camps and American at the beginning, at T30 I got only a capital and 2 archers, so that is a unavoidable 15T lose at the beginning, compared with your early settler capturing. I think it's clear that you lose ~20 turns by unskillful playing.

By your words I'd like to adjust my score of your game to -1 instead of 0. Since it seems that you even don't quite know how many civs are in the game, or at least you keep a blind eye that you cannot figure out eliminated civs.
Also you as said 60, it seems that you double your science output in 4 turns, or you don't know how to count turns.

If you're still feeling good about yourself, you can always prove yourself on GOTM games instead of cheap talk. I'm always straight with those who need but refuse to improve himself, also these guys are as offensive like you, but they actually play a mess.

I think you're just expecting for compliments instead of real focusing on game issues. It's clear that you cannot accept ideas even if they're explained thoroughly and proved to be useful.
Sorry, I was taught not to compliment with people who do not deserve. Even criticizing you is a waste of time.

 

[JamesCivFan]

That was the game which I was attacked by 3 barb camps and American at the beginning, at T30 I got only a capital and 2 archers, so that is a unavoidable 15T lose at the beginning, compared with your early settler capturing.

By your words I'd like to adjust my score of your game to -1 instead of 0. Since it seems that you even don't quite know how many civs are in the game. Also you as said 60, it seems that you double your science output in 4 turns, or you don't know how to count turns.

If you're still feeling good about yourself, you can always prove yourself on GOTM games instead of cheap talk. I'm always straight with those who need but refuse to improve himself.

Since this is turning into a personal attack at this point, I won't take part into further discussions with you, as I feel it's a waste of my precious time. Have a good day.

On topic now, @yung.carl.jung, do you have any example games where you opened up with a Scout to see how much of a difference it made compared to opening with a Worker or the usual double Slinger?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I mean I just today had a game where I found 10 City states first and had a total of 8 ruins by turn 30. Its the one I wrote about in the Science Vic thread. The advantages are immeasurable. If just one of the ruins is really good (very likely with 8 ruins..) - Worker, Scout, Relic - that in itself will play off for the Scout. And then you have tons of other added bonuses like scouting your opponents, knowing all the tiles, knowing ideal settlement locations, knowing pathing for your units, knowing which CS to conquer and which to spare.. Information is a ressource in and of itself and its a highly valuable one. In the end of course it all comes down to personal preference, there is no denying it. Just saying, meeting those 3 cultural CS is essentially 3 free Monuments. Of course you will never find this many CS first in a normal game, but I get an average of 3-4 on standard maps. Pretty sure you get 1 or 2 at best with a Slinger or Worker start.