News: BOTM 10 Pre-game Discussion

[ZPV]

Don't need sailing? If you can get a fort on that stone without access to sailing, I'll be truly amazed. (We can't use worldbuilder in the BOTM, can we?)

Is that a challenge?

Combustion beeline, here we come!

 

[kcd_swede]

What's the big deal about getting stone to first city instead of founding a city on the other landmass? Settling in place, I can already see 7 grassland tiles up there that won't overlap with capitol. It makes no difference which city in your empire have stone, does it?

With no chance of replaying I think I'll just stay away from world wonders.

I'm guessing one of the two land masses is fairly small without other players on them, in which case, it sounds like a good location to build some commerce cities not plagued by barbarians..

As I understand it...The stone is useful for getting the +100% hammers when building walls, and in this thread there has been a long discussion about using a hammer-overflow strategy when building walls to turn hammers into gold (with the hammers getting the +100% protective bonus and +100% stone bonus while building walls). No, it makes no difference where in your cities you have stone as long as they are connected to the capitol. The "big" deal about first city is that it may be impossible to get pyramids if there is no stone in the first city (or in this case no stone that you can start working until you get sailing). There is a strategy article explaining why pryamids is desirable (if not necessary) for a totally peaceful deity level culture victory.

Frankly, if you can build a single wonder on this level (popping with GE doesn't count), you should be proud.

You make a good point about the landmasses. Settling the other land mass gives me twice as much chance to avoid an early loss by conquest.

 

[lroumen]

You'll survive the ancient era, but most certainly get no chance on SH, GW, Pyramids, Oracle, Great Lighthouse, Hanging Gardens.

btw the river only supports 2 tiles, so building a levee there would be a not so bright idea. That is, if you survive up to steam power

You have to make many efforts to get to the stone and you will be rather defenseless if a close-by aggressive civ decides to get you. I think that there will be little hope for early wonders. Slightly later wonders might work though... Chichen Itza, Angkor Wat, Notre Dame, Spiral Minaret and the University of Sancore could be within reach if you can tech to them in time.

I was under the assumption that you could get hammers diagonally, though I'm mistaken indeed. I still always build a Levee wherever I can though. You'll gain more hammers over time than the cost of the Levee. As bonuses add up it can give a nice input of gold, hammers or science. I think a levee is always worth it.

 

[humbe]

Moderator Action: Reference to a current game deleted - AlanH

 

[crunch]

Adventurer. Settle. Build fish nets. Tech Polytheism. ?

 

[Gosha190]

Adventurer. Settle. Build fish nets. Tech Polytheism. ?

too short to be clear

 

[bcool]

I just tried the test game out to 1500 BC. It doesn't seem barbarians will be too much of a problem because our opponents quickly fill the empty space. You do need to protect your settlers, but any early barbarian rush probably could be held off with our protective archers.

So it doesn't seem worth it to try and build the great wall with or without access to the stone across the water.

I've never won or really even tried deity, so I don't know what is really important. I've always thought the pyramids were really important because it gives you a chance to stay tech competitive with the AI. It seems worth the sacrifice to make an early push for the pyramids.

Any thoughts on trying for goodie huts? An early scout?

What about settling one south? You give up two calms, and leave them for the stone city. You still have access to the fresh water, and maybe get lucky and expose other resources in your cross.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I've never won or really even tried deity, so I don't know what is really important. I've always thought the pyramids were really important because it gives you a chance to stay tech competitive with the AI. It seems worth the sacrifice to make an early push for the pyramids.

Tech like mad, whatever you do. If you research the extra techs needed to get the Pyramids on this map, plan in advance what you're going to do to use them effectively to catch up (you'll be behind techwise). The capital has plenty of food for scientists.

Some basic possibilities on this map: 1) REX and beeline Alpha, 2) build the Pyramids first, 3) early Sailing for REX and maybe GLighthouse (I've never done this one, btw...). Others with more experience will see other possibilities, especially if going for Cultural. The catch with the beeline Alpha is if we don't have good trading AIs. The catch with the 'Mids is possibly missing out on early REX and getting boxed in. So it's probably good to plan for either scenario at the beginning.

EDIT: On settling S, I'm fog-gazing a water tile at S-SE, so I wouldn't be surprised to find us on a very small island.

 

[Yamps]

I've won the test map Karmina posted. I went for Oracle to get Theology, focused only on diplomacy and ignored everything else for a nice Religious victory.

 

[Bugg123]

Been trying out the testmap a bit, thoughts so far (I really have no previous BTS Deity experience)

Contender:
Settling in place : Pros Good defensive position, +1 Health, 3 Clams. Cons A lot of ocean
Settling 1E : Pros Less ocean, more early commerce from mining starting position. Cons 1 less Clam (could be ok since a city on stone gets the resource anyways) bad defensive position. negated with walls that you may want for money anyways). Also.. who knows.. the coast 2S1W could have a food resource you'd want....
Settling elsewhere (like 1SE) means giving up clams = probably not a good idea.

@ wonders : Getting both GW(around turn 60-64) and Pyramids (115ish?) can be done fairly easily. Although you're spending so much resources doing so that by the time you're finished you're far enough behind that you won't get much out of having built the pyramids. (boxed in (depending on the actual lay of the land, ofcourse)).
I'm not sure GW is needed as much (although the great spy could nicely scout out the surroundings ) since Deity AIs fill out the lands pretty quickly. Does anyone know this from more experience? Do barbs really cause much problems on smallish landmasses. Maybe I'd rather spend the time building fogbusters....

Spending all this time building early wonders might not really be putting the imperialistic characteristic to good use. Or indeed the protective trait, since you'll have to focus so much on different techs early on. This means you'll get really late alpha, and probably have nothing to trade, which means game over....

 

[PutCashIn]

In the adventurer test save, I too find an early religon and then oracle to be possible, leading to a possible religious victory.

But one has to get all the AI to be pleased or happy for that yeah?

Unfortunatly I find a 'Civ4 Diplomacy Game' to be less rewarding than playing other games though....

 

[dannybe]

Just bought BTS. Ready to crack it open & play my first BOTM! Wouldn't you know it deity, epic

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Maybe I'll try this suicide. I've won on immortal twice. In 20 tries.

I'll go challenger class anyway. The goal? The wooden spoon/winning at all.....or if I lose at least doing so spectacularly.

 

[Nioco]

I've won the test map Karmina posted. I went for Oracle to get Theology, focused only on diplomacy and ignored everything else for a nice Religious victory.

I would like to know more about your strategy ! I tried the test game too and managed to build the AP around 100 AD (got marble)...but to survive I choose the religion of my powerful neighbour and thus the leading candidate is first in score...and loved by every one voting so far. How can you handle this ?

Never won a AP diplomatic victory so...

 

[mabraham]

I would like to know more about your strategy ! I tried the test game too and managed to build the AP around 100 AD (got marble)...but to survive I choose the religion of my powerful neighbour and thus the leading candidate is first in score...and loved by every one voting so far. How can you handle this ?

Never won a AP diplomatic victory so...

The AP is tied to your state religion at the time you build it (not sure what happens if you don't have one at the time). The usual way to contrive an AP diplomatic victory is to found some petty religion yourself, spread it to all your cities, switch to that religion as you found the AP (maybe using a golden age because you plan to switch back to your keep-people-happy religion/atheism soon), and then spread the religion to (preferably) only one city for each AI. You will have problems if they won't take Open Borders (if Tokugawa, you need to have been allied with him in a war) or are running Theocracy so either bribe them to change civic or burn them to the ground. Assuming nobody else makes your petty religion their state religion, you will be the only candidate for election to the residency, and then you have to wait for the ability to hopefully elect yourself winner with your overwhelming majority of votes. There is some caveat that restricts this tactic, but I can't recall what it is right now - since I've never played for it myself.

 

[toller pretzl]

You will have problems if they won't take Open Borders (if Tokugawa, you need to have been allied with him in a war) or are running Theocracy so either bribe them to change civic or burn them to the ground.

Or take one city from them and give it back with the petty religion in it.

 

[Yamps]

@AP victory

Build the Oracle and take Theology.

Switch to your minor religion (Christianity) one turn before the AP is complete and pray for a few turns that no one decides to crush you while in heathen religion. Then you switch back to get good relations again.

You spread your religion to each civ and do most of the spreading to the civ Friendly at you to get the votes. Ideally, that's a civ who founded the state religion you adopted and has a Holy city. It would be very odd for that civ to change religions. Only the AP owner is eligible for the win if nobody else adopts the AP religion, you don't want competition.

If you have Toku in the game, you need him at Pleased for OB. Mutual war isn't necessary, there are other ways to please him. You could also gift an 'infected' city to him if you can settle a city near his borders.

Theocracy is not a problem in 3.17 if you have OB, just gift them your missionaries. Theocracy works in mysterious ways, it doesn't prevent you or the AI to spread non-state religion with own missionaries. It just prevents the other guy to use his foreign religion missionaries.

You have to plan your diplomacy from the beginning and you need some luck that you don't get an early DoW. Try to have your neighbors at least Pleased at you and also try to accomplish that everybody hates somebody else just a bit more than they hate you.

Things get trickier if you need Optics to reach other civs, more time means more chances for sth to go wrong. Another problem is that Christianity could spread on it's own to soon in the game, making another civ to adopt it. In that case, Philosophy bulbing for Taoism is in order. AI doesn't prioritize Theology when you get it first, but don't wait to long to build the AP. You also shouldn't trade away Theology before you finish the AP, Deity AI builds fast you know.

That's about it, cheesy AP win. It still ain't easy, but much easier than anything else on Deity IMHO.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Couple things to add to the AP approach:

1. Bhruics 3.13 patch made it so you can't gift missionaries to civs in theocracy. This is NOT the case for 3.17. So, if they're in theocracy, just gift the missionary to them and they'll spread it for you .
2. If you don't like the above, spies are an option for civic swapping. Due to the the "that would go against everything we stand for!!!" bug, or just a legit favorite civic, that might be necessary instead of a bribe.
3. Toku has merc as a favored civic, so if you avoid pissing him off too much you can get him to pleased that way. Alternatively, if you have currency and gold right when you meet him, you can instantly gift him about 50 gold for temperorary +4 (trade relations fair/forthright) to get open borders. This bonus goes away rapidly, but he generally won't cancel OB after that unless he is *really* pissed.

Everything else has been mentioned I think. Don't forget other cheese diplo bonuses like +1-2 "you supplied us with resources" for gifting resources over time, and DEFINITELY mind religions/favorite civics. Viking favorite civic is one of the reasons they're much easier to get along with than monty/shaka, who favor PS. Usually favorite civic, OB, and religion will get you to friendly in a hurry as long as you don't piss them off.

Then the challenge is...staying alive. All defeat conditions enabled indeed ^_^.

 

[hellwitch]

Religion ?!?! ....

The way to win Deity is using cold steel and the "divide and own" rule. Any peaceful victory on deity is 80% pure luck because if someone(a developed deity AI) declare on you - game over.

 

[Erkon]

... Deity AI builds fast you know. ...

I took a look in WB and noticed the following:

The AI needs 60% of the hammers the player needs for a unit
The AI needs 80% of the food the player needs to grow one pop
The AI needs 80% of the beakers the player needs to research a tech
The AI starts with:

2 settlers
4 archers
1 worker
2 scouts​

If my memory serves me correct, it is one worker less than in Vanilla/Warlords.

I'm going to try a specialist economy this time, and my main goal is to survive the BC years . No challenger save this time, since I would very much like to win a GOTM Deity! Good luck everyone, and I hope LowtherCastle's gazing skills will not fool him into something stupid (water S-SE? tut tut - it's clearly plains )