MZD Deity: Frederick

[Fippy]

Just a quick look, not much on the compi lately.
Imo those are almost perfect circumstances for HAs, your AIs are not Gandhi soft but no protective or agg and rather average in units (with HC building so many wonders that making him an early target always pays ).

Freddies traits are also good for that, with Phi bulbing maths does not hurt and is easy.
Many forests around Berlin.
Org also nice for rush recovering.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Good job on the reports and thought sharing, makes it easy to follow and certainly encourages more responses. Keep it up .

Thanks! More responses is what I'm looking for. I'm here to learn.

2nd city between sugar and horses seems good to me. Maybe even 1S on the jungle tile, but that might be a bit too cocky. Because of horses, but mainly to block off Joao. AI love their calendar resources and you can be sure he will have an eye on that spot sooner rather than later.

I could see settling on the jungle as it wouldn't really change my plans for the rice/sugar city by much, and long term it could be great after I can spare worker turns to clear jungle. Would like to know more of what's in the fog first, but I think you're right that land grabbing is essential here.

Barbs will become a problem even before you can hook up the horses, but I don't think Archery is necessary. At least 3 warriors in total before the settler seem in order though. The first one could go to the north, there is a forested hill 1S of the silk. That should keep you safe from that direction. The scout is also doing a good job, make sure to stay in the vicinity. The other 2 warriors can approach sugar/horses. The mountain chain helps aswell. So settler will probably come at size 4. I hope that's not too late.

Warriors alone make me nervous on Deity, but I think you're right. By the time The Wheel is finished and the worker has built roads and pastured the horses the barbs will already be headed my way. I'm less concerned about the North and West, and more concerned about barbs from the South/Southeast. One of the warriors might be sent to one of the southern jungle hills.

Looking at the AI situation, I would advise BW next. To whip the next settler and start chopping as soon as possible. If the enemies were a bit closer, even AH could have been skipped. But finding horses is good I suppose. Otherwise it would've been just one grassland cow for the near future, which is a bit meh. It's important to grab space now though, otherwise they might force your hand at an early rush. Better to keep options open and get enough land yourself. Wheel-Pottery definitely seems too slow. Grab the land now, pay for it later.

I see the logic in this. Chops/whips probably shouldn't be delayed at all in this situation with a strong REX ai like Joao nearby.

As for expansion, along that river seems good to me. 1st settle = sugar/horse, 2nd settle = rice/sugar. They will be connected to each other by default. So you will only "lack" one trade route for a little while (to the capital), not too important. I would make that marble a priority. It doesn't need any food.

I could see settling 1SW of the marble (to preserve a fish city) as a resource grab for city #4-5 maybe, but how strongly do you think I should prioritize getting marble on Deity without at Ind leader and knowing that HC is one of the nearby AI? I assumed conquering wonder cities was the way to go on Deity, with the exception of some games where Oracle, GLH, TGL, or MoM, are critical. I suppose it might be worth prioritizing just for the opportunities at better failgold? At any rate, without food this city would just work some cottages or be a worker/warrior pump, right?

Commerce isn't great, but it could be worse. Those river tiles will get you to Pottery at least. Then you will be fine. There is decent space for cottaging.

Agreed, looks like I will be cottaging most everywhere, not just the cap.

This is Continents so it's likely that the other 3 AI are on their own continent(s) then?

Yep. Although I have played continents maps where the split is 5-2 or even 4-2-1/3-3-1.

I forgot to mention, and it is worth noting: Both Buddhism and Hinduism were found on my continent, and, oddly enough, Hinduism went first to HC, then Buddhism to WVO. I guess we'll see which way Joao goes. It's unlikely that there's any zealots such as Izzy/Justin/Gandhi on the map.

Long-term strategy would be between Engineering bulb and Astro play for me. On a good day you could lib Astro and go from there. Too early to tell though. I like the Engineering idea though.

This is one of the things I'm most eager to learn. More often than not my play on Imm is either elepult, curriasiers, or cannons, but I see so many Deity players and SGOTM teams win with classical/medieval strategies that I'm not familiar with. I'm hoping it's doable with 5-6 cities, because I'm not super confident in my ability to get much more than that.

Hope other people chip in and offer some different perspectives.

Absolutely! Thank you for your feedback Lain, and I look forward to hearing from others and soaking up all the advice I can!

 

[MeowZeDung]

Just a quick look, not much on the compi lately.
Imo those are almost perfect circumstances for HAs, your AIs are not Gandhi soft but no protective or agg and rather average in units (with HC building so many wonders that making him an early target always pays ).

Freddies traits are also good for that, with Phi bulbing maths does not hurt and is easy.
Many forests around Berlin.
Org also nice for rush recovering.

I could get the horse city and one other for an HA rush, no doubt, and all the other point you make are true. However, without a strong commerce tile to get me to HBR is this really going to be viable on Deity?

 

[Fippy]

Oh imo there's no need to rely on gold mines & similar for HA rushes.

From all my deity experience ( 7 years or so ) the most important thingy that stops peoples from progressing thru this (no doubt challenging) diff:
Overestimating AIs.
I have seen ~20 city AIs that had no SoD on deity.
They do the same mistakes when you DoW.

It's important that you not worry about losses, and do only your HA rush.
No grabbing this city spot from AI x, no but if this horsie survives..have your goal, taking cities. And you will usually be fine (success rate when experienced with HAs with this start..99%).

 

[MeowZeDung]

Played a bit further on, and Deity barbs are not nice! My scout got trapped running away from a warrior only to run into an archer. First warrior was sent to that general area to replace the scout, and earned a woodsman promotion after winning a battle. Currently healing.

My second warrior was sent to a forested hill to the south and uncovered a pleasant surprise:

Spoiler :

Nice!

Unfortunately, 2 turns later he was killed by a barb archer despite being fortified on a forest hill

My third warrior went north to the forested hill 1S of the silk, and the fourth went to the western horse/sugar spot.

I teched BW, and it worked out nicely where I had 69 hammers sunk into a settler the turn it was finished being researched. I immediately revolted to slavery and set the worker to chopping the forest on the riverside grassland hill 1E of Berlin. Normally I would whip the settler and send the overflow into a worker, but in this situation maybe I need a couple more warriors? One to go south (again) and the other for garrisoning the cap?

Here's a look at the surrounding land with a dotmap and the city screen:

Spoiler :

No copper

Despite all the jungle, the horse SE of Berlin seems a pretty big deal to me. It would allow me to attempt a HA rush as Fippy suggested with low maintenance costs (orange dot and yellow dot cities each only 2 tiles from cap), and orange dot has the added benefit of an instant trade route with the river connection. Unfortunately, my nearest warrior is several turns away from being able to escort the settler, and you can see my friend the barb archer hanging out down there. Losing that warrior made settling that city right out of the gate challenging.

Maybe it would be best to settle the red city, followed by the pink city, then backfill the yellow city and pursue a HA smackdown? Let me know what you all think.

Edit: Also, TW>Pottery seems logical to me next, but let me know if you see a better option.

 

[Lain]

HA rush would certainly work. It just makes for a different game and I usually don't do it unless I "have" to (i.e. boxed into a corner with horses). But it's a question of style, so let's do what you feel most comfortable with. It's not the only way to get into a strong position here. So I see no reason to "force" you into it. Good option, maybe even the best option, but not the only one. Arguably, for a learning game a more general approach is nice. HA rush is a bit of a niche strategy. There is space for at least 6 cities and the land is pretty decent. Now if Joao stole that river, the situation might change a bit...

Either way, I like the red dot for the next city, though I suppose for a HA rush you would settle 1N to have the good tiles (horses, 2x sugar) immediately available. Even when rushing, there is no reason to just gift away a nice spot like that for free.

Speaking of warriors, the warrior by the rice should move 1SW (1N of purple dot). Or 1SE and carefully secure the red dot a bit more. Either way, right now he is a bit redundant and barbs could sneak through between him and the hill chain. Shame about losing warrior and scout, but the jungle hill can probably be secured so the barbs have to attack across a river and die at 15% odds or so. Generally don't try to take fights without fortification. Rather move back.

Nice timing with the settler, can be whipped now (or grow to size 5 first, it's only one turn? Which might be enough to lose the city to Joao, so not sure here). Big overflow like that should never go into warriors. You will lose hammers that way and warriors are preferably built while growing. Rather chop one out if things get really bad. Which they might pretty soon. For a standard game, overflow should probably go into a settler. For a HA rush, into worker. Purple dot might get taken soon. Then grow back to size 4, whip next settler. I would be a bit nervous and probably chop a warrior and quickly finish another one while growing. Just to be on the safe side. It's not efficient but still a smaller loss than going for Archery with low commerce. A warrior should be on the jungle hill S of capital asap to fortify. And another one should secure red dot. Then you'll also need someone to sit on the city eventually.

Wheel for sure. Not sure about Pottery right now if you want HA. Decide later.

The marble would be a priority for me in terms of failgold. Not too many trading partners, so you want to establish a strong and independent economy. Failgold can pay for that.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Speaking of warriors, the warrior by the rice should move 1SW (1N of purple dot). Or 1SE and carefully secure the red dot a bit more. Either way, right now he is a bit redundant and barbs could sneak through between him and the hill chain.

He's on this side of the river healing. I was concerned with my already shaky warrior count about losing him right away if he moved across a river next to an archer I couldn't see. Once he was fully healed I planned on positioning him better.

Thanks for the input on everything else! I think I will settle red dot 1N next regardless of whether I pursue HA rush or not and put the whip overflow into a settler. The forest the worker is chopping will go into some more warriors.

 

[MeowZeDung]

I'm thinking I should name this turnset "The Series of Unfortunate Events"

First I whipped the settler and sent the overflow into another settler. It just happened to be timed so that the worker chop would be finished the same turn the overflow was applied, and wouldn't you know it:

Spoiler :

"Ooh, neat" I thought. "I'll just build a couple more warriors while growing then whip out this settler". The barbs had other ideas.

Spoiler :

I actually played through this scenario twice and a barb beatdown from the south foiled me both times, even while utilizing defense across a river on the forest. With some RNG luck it might work out though.

On my second reload I delayed whipping the settler for a turn so that the chops could go into a couple of warriors and was able to actually survive, but unfortunately not without the banana and rice being pillaged when all was said and done (nearly lost the riverside mine too).

Hamburg was founded at the horse/rice "red dot" site and is producing a worker.

My second settler was less than thrilled about this scenario:

Spoiler :

Ugh. One of the worst feelings to have while playing Civ. And as you can see in the screenshot, it happened while Berlin and its warriors were hanging on for dear life. Unfortunately I lost a worker turn as well while moving toward the rice. The settler double back toward the "yellow dot" site between the eastern rice/cows.

The Wheel and Pottery are in, and Writing is selected as a placeholder. Hamburg and Munich have been settled. The original worker pastured the horses and is now connecting the Western river to Berlin (originally intended to connect 2 cities to the capitol instead of just one ). Two more workers will be ready next turn and all three cities will start working on their granaries.

Here is the "empire" and its cities:

Spoiler :

Thoughts? Not sure if settling Orange dot and the fish city to the north is worth it. Maybe better to just HA rush someone (that theiving WvO comes to mind. . .) Also, I should probably build some chariots for further barb defense, but how many is enough?

Edit: save uploaded

 

[Lain]

Well, that escalated quickly . HA rush might be the only option now. No reason to give up just yet.

The barb emergency makes it hard to assess things, but it feels like quite a few worker turns were wasted. Still no trade routes for example. But you probably had no choice, or barbs just smashed the road.

I still think that Archery was not necessary. And I go for it in >50% of my games. Of course that play kind of requires the fogbusters. You lost a few unlucky battles and some "feel" for Deity barbs is needed to make some adjustments on the fly. Still no shame to get into troubles there sometimes. Can always happen.

But let's focus on the situation now. HA rush is the aim, so Writing and Horseback Riding have to be teched. Since you lost quite some time already, bulbing Math becomes mandatory.

Hamburg worker should farm a sugar tile and imo cottage the other one. With two farms you will just grow into unhappiness and you have to pay the bills later. I don't think Hamburg will get a Barracks in time, just get the Granary up.

The two river-grassland tiles below Berlin should be cottages as soon as possible. Berlin should chop/whip a library and could work cows+cottage+2 scientists at size 4. The banana tile can be re-farmed later, you have enough food for now. There are so many forests here that a stable would be really nice. Granary first, then Library. Philosophical, so no rush.

Munich no library, can work rice+cow+cottage (from Berlin)+grassland hill. Granary+Barracks.

Try to save most forests. Hamburg worker should road into Willem after being done with sugar tiles.

Let's hope people will spread religion, otherwise the low happy cap is quite a killer.

Edit: Definitely don't settle any more cities for the HA rush. Try to get the most out of the cities you have right now

 

[MeowZeDung]

The barb emergency makes it hard to assess things, but it feels like quite a few worker turns were wasted. Still no trade routes for example. But you probably had no choice, or barbs just smashed the road.

It wasn't quite that I "had no choice", but rather that the choice was between the worker building roads or pasturing the horse, and I chose the latter. Other than that perhaps debatable choice, I think my worker micro was pretty tight.

I will say that I think I just had really bad RNG luck so far this game, and I don't think that's biased or me making excuses. I've lost a scout, a warrior fortified on a forested hill, and two warriors fortified on a forest across a river from the attacking barb. That's all just the odds not playing out in my favor. Willem's city could have been more or less predicted though, and it was part of the reason I was focused on getting two settlers out as quick as possible.

I agree with your assessment of the next turnset. One worker will farm sugar then road to Willem, the original worker will finish roading to the Capitol then chop/cottage, and the third will road to Munich, pasture the cow, and re-farm the rice before helping cottage. Writing > HBR > Archery, prechop forests as soon as I am able in anticipation of the math bulb.

How large of a HA stack is enough to get started on Deity? 6ish? What's a "decent" date?

 

[Lain]

I guess 12 HAs around 800 BC would be considered good when not starting with gold and such. Attack could be a few turns later (can get away with 600 BC or something like that) but starting the war with less units is not advised. Want to have enough momentum to at least take 2 cities and really hurt their production before running out of steam and waiting for reinforcements.

Flick in a Chariot somewhere to go scouting. Really important to know where his cities are and monitor the troop movements. Avoid hill cities if possible etc.

 

[Fippy]

Certainly no shame with deity barbs, happend to all of us..

Did you have fog busters south? Imo you either need warning in advance with your guys overlooking the area, or archery.
I agree with Lain that archery can (and should) be avoided when possible, but not without a certain amount of safety before making that decision.
If you have one (or even more) bigger areas that you cannot fogbust close to your cap, it's usually better taking archery early so you can put hammers into them instead of warriors. Otherwise it's imo just gambling.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Certainly no shame with deity barbs, happend to all of us..

Did you have fog busters south? Imo you either need warning in advance with your guys overlooking the area, or archery.
I agree with Lain that archery can (and should) be avoided when possible, but not without a certain amount of safety before making that decision.
If you have one (or even more) bigger areas that you cannot fogbust close to your cap, it's usually better taking archery early so you can put hammers into them instead of warriors. Otherwise it's imo just gambling.

Yeah, lesson learned. To answer your question though: yes, I did have a southern fogbusting warrior, but he was killed shortly after he fortified on the southern forested hill and I just didn't replace him quick enough. I suppose I could have taken the calculated risk of pulling on of the northern/western fogbusting warriors that way, but I didn't want a barb city spawning along the river.

 

[MeowZeDung]

It's 700BC, and I have both good news and bad news.

The good news is that Willem has only one hill city, and I can pretty much ignore it.

The bad news is that I'm definitely not going to have a dozen HAs ready by ~600BC, and Willem and Joao both have metal.

The low commerce slowed me down to the point that I was able to get barracks and stables in all three of my cities, but I would have rather had HBR quicker obviously.

Here's a look at Willem and Joao's land and my cities:

Spoiler :

Several forests are pre-chopped, and I should be able to get a stack put together in relatively short order. There is a hill in Joao's border that I can stage my attack from. My thoughts were to attack Willem's first city directly from there the turn I DoW him and send my 3-4 chariots on the 2 turn trek through hostile territory to pillage the copper and pray that he doesn't have a unit on top of it. I'm not overly optimistic here, but if it ends up being a total flop I'm fine with starting over from T0 for at least one more attempt.

Edit: Save uploaded. Worth noting that Utrecht is the Buddhist holy city (no shrine yet, but he built the oracle and might pop a GP before I attack) and has the Colossus in it. Willem's capitol is quite nice as well. Several of the others are probably best razed, if I can take them in the first place! Buddhism and Judaism have both spread to me, and I'm most likely to convert to Judaism as WvO is Buddhist and Joao/HC are Jewish.

 

[sampsa]

Things look pretty grim to me, although I'm certainly no expert on deity HA-rushing. I think you should have prioritized more (cottages!) instead of focusing on (too much whipping?). I think already barracks is a bit situational building when HA-rushing, so having rax+stables in all 3 cities seems bit of a waste. Low happy cap hurts a lot, too. Too bad you didn't have anything to give to Joao in exchange for gems.

One thing hurting you a lot is unit upkeep. After you have chariots, maybe those fogbusting warriors become just a burden and you should think about disbanding them.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Things look pretty grim to me, although I'm certainly no expert on deity HA-rushing. I think you should have prioritized more (cottages!) instead of focusing on (too much whipping?). I think already barracks is a bit situational building when HA-rushing, so having rax+stables in all 3 cities seems bit of a waste. Low happy cap hurts a lot, too. Too bad you didn't have anything to give to Joao in exchange for gems.

One thing hurting you a lot is unit upkeep. After you have chariots, maybe those fogbusting warriors become just a burden and you should think about disbanding them.

I think you're right for the most part. I didn't expect my first Deity game to be anywhere near perfect, so I'm not too surprised. If I put together my HA stack and promptly fall flat on my face, I'll replay the map and try focusing more on getting some cottages up sooner.

 

[Pangaea]

Looks pretty tough Only 3 cities, no HAs yet, no happiness and practically no forests outside the capital. Thankfully the capital has loads, and almost all are pre-chopped, but you need more cities than 1 producing them at a steady pace. All AIs have many cities, which means they will get out a decent defence in no time upon DOW. From what is visible, Willem has a fair few units already. 5 guys in Maastrict, including a spear. Won't be cheap. He also has metal deep in his territory (that 2f,4h grassland tile is iron), so you won't be able to remove that early in the war, and thus access to spears and swords.

From what I read, you had bad luck with barbs and the rng, so maybe best to start from scratch again? Personally I hate replaying maps, but for learning purposes it's probably a good exercise.

edit: Willem is willing to trade iron, so he has a 2nd resource somewhere too. Would be less impossible to attack somebody else I reckon. Would Joao be easier, if you planned for that? Close and with better land, without the huge distance up to Willem's capital.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Well, based on everyone's comments I'd say I'm doing worse than I thought I mean, I figured I was kind of stumbling along, but I didn't really know how to gauge my performance on Deity (ie I don't know what's "normal" or "good" yet.)

It sounds like the bad luck with barbs early and Willem beating me to the river rice city was just too much. I think I'll start fresh a little later this evening.

What to improve upon for attempt #2? I don't think my warrior move and fogbust mechanics were bad per se, just unlucky. Still, more strategic fogbusting should help (will try to not let map knowledge influence too much). Other than that, more focus on commerce I suppose? I will try to get cottages built quicker for sure.

 

[Lain]

Looking at the timing of everything here + the low happy cap, I suggest skipping Pottery all together. Two cities with libraries running 2 scientists each + trade routes should do the trick. Granaries don't do much good, you are outgrowing your happy cap as it is. A few careful whips should be applied, but most of your army will come from chopping with Math. And a few cottages (you can't really work more) won't even pay back the investment of getting Pottery. Better to get up two libraries and work scientists in at least 2 cities. The additional GPP points will come in handy later after the HA rush (bulb Philosophy, get back into the trading game, etc), being Philosophical and all.

I would love to try it, but somehow the whole BUFFY thing isn't working for me and I can't open the starting save .

Writing 1800 BC and HBR 1100 BC shouldn't be unrealistic.

AG -> AH -> BW -> Wheel -> Writing -> HBR -> Archery

Bulb Math and slog towards Currency with capture gold. Joao should be the target, based on the scouting.

Here is an example of a successful HA rush without Pottery with less forests, less cities and worse land: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deitymania-2-lincoln.602160/#post-14533193

 

[MeowZeDung]

Thanks for the advice and link Lain, I will check it out! Not sure why the save won't work for you. I thought de-selecting "lock modified assets" like I did made the save available to anyone to open it. I have a similar issue when I opened your isolated Hannibal map in the other thread and had to play it unmodded. I guess I should download BUG and just use buffy for xotm and HoF.