Need help with a start. Deity/standard/standard. File inside.

[Bliss]

SCREENSHOTS BELOW.

How do you play this? What techs, policies, build orders?

 

[DrCron]

Many people will not see this while having time to open the game, so to get more answers I recommend uploading a few screen shots of your game. You can add specific questions to the screenshots (eg: this is my science tree, where do I go from here? / where should I place my next city / should I attack this neighbor here?) to get useful replies.

 

[AlannaT]

Also, it would be great to tell us the game settings (map, difficulty, speed, civ etc.) and intended victory (if you have chosen one). Might motivate some people to load the save, if they feel like that can contribute based on that info.

 

[Bangau]

@Bliss, I tried to load the game file, was curious was it was you need help on, but you have a mod on called 'Flatter dynamic turn timer', and others without that mod can't load it without that.

 

[Bliss]

@Bliss, I tried to load the game file, was curious was it was you need help on, but you have a mod on called 'Flatter dynamic turn timer', and others without that mod can't load it without that.

Damn. Now I remember why I hate even useful mods.

I'll sum up it for you guys, @DrCron @AlannaT: French Eleanor start. Peter very close to the north. Gengis to the south, both locking me in this coastal start. Sea to the left. Room for only 1 city to the right, no horses. Both of them will forward-settle me and take advantage of the rough terrain to make an archer rush useless. Due to agendas, Peter will hate me even if I try to buy him, and Gengis won't befriend me for whatever reason. DOW will come from at least 1 guy. I was thinking that maybe the only possible thing to do in this case is a warrior rush?

 

[Bliss]

Here a possible turn 10:

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Personally I would of crossed the river to get closer to the spices and to get more tiles to work.
I don't play very well though and usually finish around turn 230 to 300 depending.
The land on this start looks difficult though.
Not even sure where you can drop your second city.
I guess you go coastal again and go for a naval attack to the south.
I'd love to hurry and drop a second city to the East but probably get rolled lol.
Another look and I guess you could drop one on the Deer and on the Coast now from your position.

 

[Tabarnak]

I also would have settled closer from spice. Knowing that there is no horses around i would get a shot for iron, settle a city close to Russia and sword rush him with a great general and a trade route to him to get maximum damage in less time possible. If no iron maybe try to borrow somewhere.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I also would have settled closer from spice. Knowing that there is no horses around i would get a shot for iron, settle a city close to Russia and sword rush him with a great general and a trade route to him to get maximum damage in less time possible. If no iron maybe try to borrow somewhere.

I agree. You just pick up much better tiles with crossing the river.
You need that production to make things easier on your early game.
Anytime I see spices or chocolate I usually try to get very close to them if not on top of them.
I usually play Pangaea so I try to stay away from a Capital on the Coast.

 

[Bliss]

I also would have settled closer from spice. Knowing that there is no horses around i would get a shot for iron, settle a city close to Russia and sword rush him with a great general and a trade route to him to get maximum damage in less time possible. If no iron maybe try to borrow somewhere.

I agree. You just pick up much better tiles with crossing the river.
You need that production to make things easier on your early game.
Anytime I see spices or chocolate I usually try to get very close to them if not on top of them.
I usually play Pangaea so I try to stay away from a Capital on the Coast.

Would you guys keep it to one city and try to maintain peace? Use archers to defense only and not offense?

 

[DrCron]

Did you mention the difficulty setting? I play on deity, which in this case would mean at least one DOW for sure, probably two. Tough start, you can settle maybe one extra city and that's it. You absolutely HAVE to go archer rush, no other option is available for expansion here.

If you settle city number 2 four tiles SE (deer valley) you can go for Mongolia, and hope that the river crossing attack penalty is enough to defend Paris from Russia (+ maybe 1 or 2 archers). I would probably do that since it looks like that Mongolian city already has a farm (free health!) and is probably easy to attack.

You need to take at the very least one city from Genghis before making peace. If you can take more, take more. If the terrain is too hard, get all of Mongolia's money for peace and go north to deal with the Russian aggression, kill their units and get some money for peace too. If Peter doesn't attack you, that's pretty much the best-case scenario. Invade all of Mongolia and then use that nice leand to the east for some additional expansion.

 

[Casualty of war]

Well, after 3 Eras all I can say is that I'm less dead than 3 other civs. Yeesh, what a start.

What I see as an upside is only needing a single tech and a Builder to get the Craftsmanship inspiration. If I could have gotten a Settler near enough to those Horses to the East, I could have made a go at it. I have one Horseman built using tribal village Horses that can't heal! I made a bunch of Slingers to make into Archers, withstand the first person to pick a fight and then counterattack to open up some space. Never could get enough of an offensive force put together but I was able to turtle up and defend pretty well. I managed to keep Mongolia friendly, and also Scotland when they found me.

If I would have been able to manage a Heroic Renaissance I might have been able to pull this out. Russia and Mongolia both went Dark then and I would have been able to flip cities like crazy. I could maybe get a Diplomatic Victory out of this

 

[Bangau]

Maybe you could provide the game seed and settings you used? I'd like to try this one as well, looks challenging! @Casualty of war : did you download the mod to be able to play the game?

 

[Bliss]

Well, after 3 Eras all I can say is that I'm less dead than 3 other civs. Yeesh, what a start.

What I see as an upside is only needing a single tech and a Builder to get the Craftsmanship inspiration. If I could have gotten a Settler near enough to those Horses to the East, I could have made a go at it. I have one Horseman built using tribal village Horses that can't heal! I made a bunch of Slingers to make into Archers, withstand the first person to pick a fight and then counterattack to open up some space. Never could get enough of an offensive force put together but I was able to turtle up and defend pretty well. I managed to keep Mongolia friendly, and also Scotland when they found me.

If I would have been able to manage a Heroic Renaissance I might have been able to pull this out. Russia and Mongolia both went Dark then and I would have been able to flip cities like crazy. I could maybe get a Diplomatic Victory out of this

View attachment 547181

Kudos to you for giving it a try Thanks. I can't help but remember my pain.

Maybe you could provide the game seed and settings you used? I'd like to try this one as well, looks challenging! @Casualty of war : did you download the mod to be able to play the game?

Settings: Deity dif. Normal speed, Continents (I guess). Leader: Eleanor-France.Seed below (this is a seed, right?):

Btw, this mod has no effects on SP. Only MP -> Flatter dynamic turn timer.

 

[Casualty of war]

Maybe you could provide the game seed and settings you used? I'd like to try this one as well, looks challenging! @Casualty of war : did you download the mod to be able to play the game?

I just clicked on the Mod, then clicked it off when I was done. This was brutal, but I think I could have Loyalty-fought my way out of the corner if I would have gotten just a smidge more Era score in any given era. I also know where to find a LOT of Russian artifacts because I massacred their attacking forces in droves so I could have had some pretty great Archaeological Museums..

 

[Bliss]

Another attempt. Nabbed that Iron resource. Rushed swordsman and General but... can't hold that city due to loyalty. Should probably spam settlements on +0 housing tiles just to pump loyalty. Disgusting. (And St. Petersburg can't be taken. 49 - City Strenght ffs).

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I took a quick run at it.
Crossed the River and found a goody hut to buy the Spices on turn 3.
I got boxed in pretty quick by Russia and Khan.
Gave Khan the Jade for free and he allied up with me.
Russia Attacked and I missed a Barb Camp by one turn to fall into a Dark Age.
Was able to use my Gov to stop the loyalty pressure.
Wiped out most of Russia's Troops with archers as he had mostly warriors and catapults.
Could of probably crushed khan as he was getting Barbed and didn't have strong troops but he was allied.
He refused to help in my war.

Second City was nice by the Jade but this game seems to cry out One City only.
Rush a bunch of Archers and war it up.
I will probably mess with it a second time later.
I had some information for the first run and now more for the second.
I usually don't like that as playing blind is the most fun for me but this map is difficult enough to play over and over.
I took some pics and will add later.
I was able to pillage Russia for some Faith and Gold but that was about it.

 

[Bliss]

My next attempt I'll probably get that Iron again and rush Knights instead of Swordsman. If anyone wants to do this before me... please go on. Share results

 

[Tabarnak]

I'm sharing mine:

Build order: Scout-settler-settler-monument-slinger-worker
2nd city: worker-warrior

Went south with warrior and north-east with scout. A barb camp from the south annoyed me for some turns, had to rush buy a warrior while building a slinger. Initial warrior made a loop and came back to help them in time. Settled 3rd city near Ghengis land.

Ghengis was building a lot of units while Russia wasn't, busy to send missionnaries everywhere. But Ghengis traded with me for diplo points in exchange of open borders and some gold. That was the only time i traded with AIs. It probably calmed him down, i don't know.

I made an internal route instead of Russia because his army wasnt too big and i prefered extra food/prod instead and a good connection from Capital to center of the continent.

Meanwhile my scout had researched a lot of infos, catching first Valetta and the cultural cs. Found a late faith ruin and managed to get religious settlements for a 4th city near Russia land.

Goal now was to get a great general and make swords/archers to attack Russia. Ghengis was busy with Hattusa so no danger for me i guessed. Once it was done i quickly captured my first city. Upgraded a warrior and now with 3 swords making a lot of damage.

Capital is building Warrior Throne and a worker chopped the spices to synch with Russia's capital fall next turn.

Game is going well i think, maybe it's winnable from there i dunno. I uploaded the save too.

 

[RealHuhn]

Just gonna be bland here. You settled in a bad location with very low production and started with two scouts and a slinger. That's a complete waste of turns. Those scouts are useless in a situation like this. I get it, scouts are fun but if you want to maximize your chances of winning on every map, building two scouts is a death trap.
Always settle near good production tiles, build only one unit (scout, slinger, or warrior) and a fast second settler. With two cities, you almost double your production right away. Staying on one city is a mistake, especially when your capital has low production. Look at it mathematically. In early game, the highest priority is to maximize your production as fast as possible. Because what is better? Waiting 15 turns to build 3 units or use those turns to double your production and build those 3 units in half the time a few turns later? In the 2nd scenario, you have the same amount of units but two cities instead of one. That's a no brainer.

Look at Tabarnaks game. He even managed to build two settlers before wasting time on units. Improving luxuries after the initial second settler is another option on many maps. You have better tiles, get the eureka for Agoge and can use the gold to rushbuy units if you get rushed. Early infrastructure is a win-win.