Not a real Deity yet, anybody want to help ?

[Balnor]

Hi yall!
First off a little background : I've been lurking the forums for a while now and though just reading through various threads on here has helped me greatly improve my games already, I still struggle to win games on Deity level alot.
I can win most games on Immortal by now (when I don't slack) but it has lost most of it's challenging feel so I'm trying to become consistent on Deity. Outside of Culture & Diplo wins, or the few times where I manage to get an easy block to like 10+ cities, I have a hard time keeping up with the AI.

So long story short, I decided I need some active help! I even brought you a game for that. I will try to play it in sets of 50 turns each. I would welcome any kind of feedback, criticism, anything that helps really. Also, feel free to play along if you want, as long as you put any info in spoiler tags.

So, lets get started !

Our leader is Pericles of Greece, just because I felt like it . A strong solid leader all around, one of my favorites in the game.
Game Settings : Deity, Pangea, Temperate, Normal Size, Normal Speed, Events ON, Huts OFF
Victory Conditions are all turned on, but gonna aim for Conquest/Domination/Space Race if I can (since thats what I struggle with most)

Start location is this :

Spoiler :

Yes I realize it's a crazy start, I even admit I regenerated a couple crap ones before it. In fact I dont remember ever having a more promising start location. Don't worry though, I have no doubt I will still make it look challenging enough
Since I already played to turn 50, I know that this game will be far from a pushover (at least for me)

Anyways, I think that settling in place is no doubt the best option here, 1W would be an alternative but you would have to get another city to work the gold. Gains would be marginal, basically 1 more fresh water lake tile (2E of Settler is a lake too), losing the gold for that is just not worth it, so I SIP

On to my game, real spoiler alert now in case you want to play along :

Spoiler :

Turn 0 : Production set to : Worker (to improve my land asap) ->Work Boat (more food)
Tech set to : Agriculture -> Mining

Turn 5 : I guess the bad news had to start at some point eh met Shaka on T3, his Capital is pretty close too...

Turn 15 : Worker finished, I set the city to productive until the corn is farmed.

Turn 19 : Met all the Civs, I would prefer to get Buddhism spread instead of Hindu, since an Izzy that hates you is almost as bad as another Shaka in my experience, yet she is easy to please when running the same religion.
I dont really fear any of the other leaders, just have to watch for the financial bunch running away in tech / culture I guess.

Techwise I finished Mining, next : BW -> Archery (if no copper) -> TW -> Pottery -> Writing

Turn 23 : Shaka settled closer to me. I considered settling on that hill to help defend against the inevitable Shaka waves, but decide against it. It really would be a crap city without any real food and heavy border overlap with Shaka's city to the South. I will instead settle Sparta 1N from the hill for Rice, Silk, Ivory, fresh water and to help keep Shaka away from my Copper.

Turn 27 : Shows my eastern border, Wang Kon is already pretty close too. Meanwhile, work boat has finished and I build a Warrior next.

T31 BW reveals copper inside my borders! I still decide to go for archery next since my research is great, archers cost less hammers than Axes, and finally I dont have a spare worker to mine and road there yet.
Warrior will be finished in 1T, getting a Settler next. My worker is almost done improving the resources, he's going to chop 1 forest before building a road to what will be Sparta.

Turn 36 : Stupid Event makes me lose one precious forest
Wonder what kind of criminals were running around setting forest fires in 2500 BCs
Warrior has to head back for happiness. And I already chopped 1, so now down to only 3 forests in Athens...Makes me wish I had turned events off, but I feel that some randomness can help spice up games.
I already have huts turned off, and in my experience events aren't game-deciding anyways.

Turn 41 : I settled Sparta, took a small risk since I had no units for protection around, but I dont think Barbs would enter borders just yet. If any barbs popped next turn my warrior from Athens could still get there in time since the road will finish by then.
Both of my cities are going for archers now. When Athens finishes it, it is going to put 1 turn into yet another archer to grow to size 5, then go for another Settler.

Finally, the situation after 50 turns:

Spoiler :

(Map North)

(Map Southwest) Shaka bordering me now

Athens

Sparta

Tech Situation

I will be teching to IW next (to hook Sparta's Rice). Originally I was going to wait with 0% Slider until I get a Library in Athens but I decided my tech was strong enough without it for now.

Also, I probably wont have the time to build one anytime soon, reason being : Writing revealed Shaka is already in full hands mode. I dont know whether he has access to copper, but I'd rather not lose this game by turn 70 because of some early DOW.

I'm about to get another settler out to settle what is going to become a great productive city to the north:

My tech situation is very good for T50...well duh, that was easy enough with such a starting location.
None of the techs I could go for would really help me much in a war with Shaka this early though (perhaps I should consider Masonry to whip a wall in Sparta?), that's why I'm pretty desperate to get more hammers in now.

I fear I may have already lost the game though what with Shaka being full hands and bordering me already. Did I go wrong by building too few military units? I only lost my starting scout so far, have 1 warrior & 1 archer, 2 more archers coming in ~5 turns.

Maybe I was going for my 3rd city too soon, but Izzy is already spamming cities not too far from up there, Wang Kon is not far to the east, Shaka obviously SW. I fear to get crowded in very early again.

I'd welcome any criticisms.

Finally, my plans for next set :

Spoiler :

Obviously, surviving is going to have highest priority. I plan to get at least 3 archers into Sparta and get the copper hooked for Phalanxes asap.

I'd like to get 1 more city on my eastern border to Wang Kon for spices and possibly contest his dye and banana there, but I dont know if I can get there before him or even when I'll have time to build another settler. Even if I get it, it would require alot of work (and calendar) to make a profit, and I'm already low on workers.
I only have 1 worker right now, so I might have to whip at least 1 in Athens, also need 1 more workboat there.

I can build at least 2 more cities without any rush though, one would be a decent moai thats marked on my map, and another probably 1 NE of the desert stone w/ copper,stone and sharing corn and 1 clam with Athens.

Techwise I'll finish IW next to give Sparta access to the Rice, then on to Aesthetics to trade that around. Dont think I will be trying to build any wonders, I need my hammers for expansion and defense mostly.
Construction after that, since I have Ivory I could do some Cataphant (or Elepult, whatever you prefer ) warring, and Odeons as Pericles are always nice !

That pretty much sums it up, I'd REALLY appreciate any tips or comparison plays from anyone. If I feel confident enough and get enough time, I'll try to update the game with the next set asap. Gonna attach the starting- and turn50-saves.

 

[oranje willem]

holy..... the only thing that start is missing is a river

 

[shyuhe]

Given your start location and the proximity of the AI, archery was probably not needed (until you get a barracks and start preparing for that Shaka). Also, I would have just whipped a second worker when you hit size four so that you can get copper connected and a worker out to help with Sparta. It would also have freed up some growth time to build another WB.

Teching IW sounds like a really bad idea. The only tile it opens up is a single rice tile - I'd try to get it in a trade instead. You have two great commerce tiles to speed up teching. So turn off the slider while you finish a library, then pick up aesthetics or alphabet and go trade for IW.

 

[dingding]

Believe me you'll have to be DoWed by Shaka sooner or later, (If not this time, it's the next one) consequently I think the location of Sparta should have been 1S or 1N. Checked your save, Shaka probably just hooked up the Iron and started spamming Swordmen and Impis. Next tech should be Masonry and be prepared with at least 4 Archers and walls.

 

[futurehermit]

elepults work on deity?

 

[Balnor]

Given your start location and the proximity of the AI, archery was probably not needed (until you get a barracks and start preparing for that Shaka). Also, I would have just whipped a second worker when you hit size four so that you can get copper connected and a worker out to help with Sparta. It would also have freed up some growth time to build another WB.

Teching IW sounds like a really bad idea. The only tile it opens up is a single rice tile - I'd try to get it in a trade instead. You have two great commerce tiles to speed up teching. So turn off the slider while you finish a library, then pick up aesthetics or alphabet and go trade for IW.

I hear ya on the part about teching IW, it's probably better to just trade for it in this game, especially since I already have copper nearby.

About Archery though, I would rather get it sooner than later with Shaka nearby, especially considering he's in full hands mode already. By the time I get a Barracks up he might be in the position to declare on me, and having a couple more Archers for defense can mean all the difference imo.

Not having a 2nd worker already is indeed a problem, but there wouldnt really have been time to build it until now unless I delayed my 2nd settler. As I said, I was just afraid of being walled in too soon in the game so I decided to get that premium site up there first

Believe me you'll have to be DoWed by Shaka sooner or later, (If not this time, it's the next one) consequently I think the location of Sparta should have been 1S or 1N. Checked your save, Shaka probably just hooked up the Iron and started spamming Swordmen and Impis. Next tech should be Masonry and be prepared with at least 4 Archers and walls.

I didn't even consider 1N of where I settled Sparta, I would probably have gone for that instead otherwise. Good tip, but too late I'm afraid

I also realize Shaka will declare on me at some point, I just hope and pray that he doesn't have copper/iron already hooked or that he will go for somebody else first. Looking at the land I scouted I fear he may be in his own little corner down there, but I dont know where Darius and some others are located yet, so with some luck one of them is down there too.

Another option would have been to focus settling N and E and skip the Sparta location altogether, though I guess he would just come for Athens then sooner or later.

Anyways, I hope to continue the game tomorrow so I guess we'll see how it turns out. Have a bad feeling though, Shaka has already ruined too many civ games for me when he starts close

 

[Balnor]

elepults work on deity?

Why wouldn't they ? I've had good success with them already in a Deity game before, anything up to including longbows can be done with them imo.

 

[Shurdus]

You do not think the barbs would enter your borders on 2300BC on deity? Think again.

Also why did you go for archery? The land around you seems crowded. Very crowded indeed. There probably will not be any barbs left soon, and the ones that are there can be pushed out if you get the copper online. Grabbing archery this soon is a bit of a waste imo.

Also you settled the city without there being a pressing need. You could have kept your settler sitting there waiting for an AI settler and settle the city once either the road was up for the trade route or the AI would take the spot if you would not. You now settled a city that barely has any function ,or at least you settled it a few turns too soon. It is not major but it is something you may want to reconsider doing again.

You are doing well for now. Absolutely get another settler out to claim the productive northern city and then try to get east to grab the river/dye site. You may be the target of Shaka now, I am not too sure since I could not take a look at the save. In any case you need defenses sooner rather than later. Dig in, tech to elepults if you need to and slam someone into oblivion, Shaka seems an obvious target since he has it coming from being Shaka.

 

[Balnor]

You do not think the barbs would enter your borders on 2300BC on deity? Think again.

Yea, I realize they start to enter about then, I just felt I had a couple turns left before any would show up, it was a bit of a gamble, but I think it will work out. Anyways, as you have pointed out, the land around me is very crowded, there's all kinds of archers and scouts roaming my borders and cities popping up to help me make it.

Also why did you go for archery? The land around you seems crowded. Very crowded indeed. There probably will not be any barbs left soon, and the ones that are there can be pushed out if you get the copper online. Grabbing archery this soon is a bit of a waste imo.

You're the 2nd person to say that, yet I'm still not convinced heh.
Again, the reason why I got Archery was not to deal with barbs, but to already prepare for Shaka. I dont know about you, but I've been getting war declarations on deity as soon as turn 50ish, which means every turn counts now.

What would you use to fight somebody off coming for you now ? Warriors ? They'd be absolutely useless vs. anything axe or above, and I've not seen an AI try to archer rush me yet
Upgrading even a single warrior to an axe costs about as much gold as it cost me to to tech to archery instead.

Finally I was in a very strong tech position, so there really aren't any techs I missed out on up to now. As Dingding pointed out, I might need masonry for walls, and I probably will go for that next, but I will still need a couple defenders in Sparta to get any use out of those first, and by the time I have those, I will easily have masonry too.

Also you settled the city without there being a pressing need. You could have kept your settler sitting there waiting for an AI settler and settle the city once either the road was up for the trade route or the AI would take the spot if you would not. You now settled a city that barely has any function ,or at least you settled it a few turns too soon. It is not major but it is something you may want to reconsider doing again.

I settled it now because I value hammers over beakers at this point. Getting it online sooner will net me at least 2/turn, while letting it grow steadily. The road there was finished 2 turns after it was settled, so I lost 4 from that, which I can live with.

The mistake there was probably not settling it on the hill instead, I just hope it won't be a crucial one.

You are doing well for now. Absolutely get another settler out to claim the productive northern city and then try to get east to grab the river/dye site. You may be the target of Shaka now, I am not too sure since I could not take a look at the save. In any case you need defenses sooner rather than later. Dig in, tech to elepults if you need to and slam someone into oblivion, Shaka seems an obvious target since he has it coming from being Shaka.

I'm claiming the northern site next yes, not sure about the one to the east. I'd love to get it, but will most likely only have time for it if Shaka declares on somebody else first. I'm totally with ya on the rest, Shaka needs some spankin , but I may not be able to take him on alone with such few cities, so hopin I can drag somebody else into that war.
Anyways, not quite there yet, I'll play the next round tonight.

Thanks for all the advice so far btw, though I may not agree on all points, it made me rethink some of my usual routines. I may be wrong on some of my decisions, but in the end I'm here to learn after all. Would still love to see someone try out the game for comparison though !

 

[Shurdus]

Finally I was in a very strong tech position, so there really aren't any techs I missed out on up to now. As Dingding pointed out, I might need masonry for walls, and I probably will go for that next, but I will still need a couple defenders in Sparta to get any use out of those first, and by the time I have those, I will easily have masonry too.

I settled it now because I value hammers over beakers at this point. Getting it online sooner will net me at least 2/turn, while letting it grow steadily. The road there was finished 2 turns after it was settled, so I lost 4 from that, which I can live with.

Thanks for all the advice so far btw, though I may not agree on all points, it made me rethink some of my usual routines. I may be wrong on some of my decisions, but in the end I'm here to learn after all. Would still love to see someone try out the game for comparison though !

What I do not understand is that you say you struggle to come up with the worker turns to hook up the copper - a very important resource with Shaka next door and everything - yet you can get the stone up online for later and find time to build walls no problem? Different playstyles and everything is cool, but this to me sounds like a priority issue. I would get that copper up and get some axes, it will serve you better than walls for now. Also give Shaka a call every now and then. If he warns you to fear his chariot I would get some spears too. If you can get another scouting unit - that is if you can afford to have some one wander out and not be defending when the hammer falls - you may want to take a peek for yourself instead.

Pre-edit: this would be good advice in general (imo) but then I realised your UU eats chariots for breakfast. My bad!

I agree with settling the city not being a very big deal. I would have approached things differently here since a those 8 hammers are nothing to get too excited about, but whatever. One may argue that you needed it to defend from Shaka, but then again he only started plotting once you settled the city. You brought it on yourself sooner rather than later because of the way you settled, and then add the fact that you had no idea what was in the fog, it could have been a barbarian archer... In the end it worked out well no doubt but try not to make a habit out of it. It may cost you.

When I am at home I may gove this game a go, but I will not promise you anything. The missus may not like it that much, we will see.

 

[shyuhe]

Given Shaka's proximity, it probably would have been better to settle on the hill as pointed out by dingding. It's not a long-term city but no point thinking of the long term if you won't make it past turn 100 otherwise.

 

[Balnor]

@Shurdus

Calling Shaka up to see if he tells me to "fear his..." is a good one, as I still don't know what kind of military resource he has hooked or if any at all.
Which leads me to another question : Will the AI even go into WHEOOHRN mode without having copper/iron/horse hooked ? As in, would they start planning a war with the ability to build just archers ?
Also, how do you know he went into plotting only after I settled Sparta ? I remember a game where Ragnar came knockin on turn 60 or so without having any kind of close borders to me (distance to him in that game was pretty much the same as it is from Shaka's capital to mine in this game).
I do realize the AI values having close borders in their decision on whom to attack, but does it affect their decision to go to war on anybody at all ?

Don't know if that makes any sense, I'm just not too deep into that ai behaviour stuff, I fear that if I look all of that up on the spreadsheets and info that's around, that I might lose too much of the excitement this game still holds on me. It's pretty much the same thing as with why I leave events on, I want to preserve some randomness/unpredictability, or the games would feel too much alike.

Anyways, I'll see what Shaka tells me on the diplo screen as soon as I get home, thanks for that.

About the masonry vs. copper thing, I do not plan to get stone hooked for walls at all. I realize a stone resource would be close, but I cant really settle a city there now, and yes, I dont have the worker turns to hook it anyways. I plan to chop/whip the walls in Sparta as soon as I get the chance though, cause even without stone, walls can easily be worth 50 pre-catapults if you know that all of the attacks will be focused in one city and you have at least several defenders up already.

Hooking copper for phalanxes soon is still high on my priority list, but I think in a purely defensive situation archers hold up well enough vs. axes (I'm pretty sure they're quite a bit better than axes vs. axes if you take the hammer cost into account).
It's swordsmen that I'm afraid of there, once those show up I'll need axes asap.

When I am at home I may gove this game a go, but I will not promise you anything. The missus may not like it that much, we will see.

I hope you do find the time, dont wanna be the cause of a romance gone bad though

Given Shaka's proximity, it probably would have been better to settle on the hill as pointed out by dingding. It's not a long-term city but no point thinking of the long term if you won't make it past turn 100 otherwise.

/Agree, this has been the one mistake I made so far that I fear may be game-breaking.

 

[shyuhe]

TMIT knows this better than I do, but if I remember the AI will not go into war prep unless it can build at least two different types of offensive units. So it needs at least copper, iron, or chariots/HA + catapults.

Also, I'd plant the stone/copper city one tile north so that it can share the clams for growth. It can probably help grow some inland cottages too.

 

[Balnor]

Well, I just played to turn 100, it was brutal
Don't think there's much chance for me to actually win this one, I was in war with Shaka for 40 out of the 50 turns so my economy had to suffer a bit.

Here's some screenies from the t100 situation :

Spoiler :

I dont even think I'll do the complete writeup of my turns, the situation seems so hopeless to me that I may not even continue on with the game.
As some have pointed out, the biggest mistake was to not settle Sparta on the hill 1N of where I did, the game would probably have been doable otherwise. I just had to waste way too many resources on military units and gained nothing but a couple GGs (of which I lost one again)

Finally, including the 100-turn-save, if anyone wants to take a look.

 

[kossin]

Can't open the save but a few things:

-Let Athens grow a bit. I realize you're low on improvements but your Capital is often your best and most important city... and it's vastly underdeveloped at this point. Granary->Lighthouse, move the gold mine to clams. Build a worker later when you're actually working your improved tiles.
-I don't know where the settler you're building is planning to go. Unless it's a critical spot that needs settling now (unlikely seeing as to how you're boxed in), a worker would be a more sensible thing to do imo.
-Thebes: Monument? You're Creative and already have a library in place... worker/lighthouse

If you can plant 2 more cities to share food inside your borders, you should still have a shot at this one with proper bulbing for a renaissance war vs. a backwards Shaka or whoever is more fit for it. I say this without being able to look at the save however.

 

[Balnor]

-Let Athens grow a bit. I realize you're low on improvements but your Capital is often your best and most important city... and it's vastly underdeveloped at this point. Granary->Lighthouse, move the gold mine to clams. Build a worker later when you're actually working your improved tiles.

It's so underdeveloped since it had to whip defenders throughout most of the war with Shaka It's 1 turn away from generating a scientist, after which I would of course turn those off again and let the city work improved tiles. I think I planned to whip the worker and overflow into the already started granary.

-I don't know where the settler you're building is planning to go. Unless it's a critical spot that needs settling now (unlikely seeing as to how you're boxed in), a worker would be a more sensible thing to do imo.

The war with Shaka just ended 2 turns before those screenies (I had to bribe him with Aesthetics+Math for that), so I wanted to take the time that I gained where I dont have to build military to settle the rest of my land if possible. 2 more cities that I could build, one is marked as moai on the map, the other 1 NE of the desert stone. I probably would settle the moai one first, since it would at least have it's own fish resource (whereas the other one would need one of Athen's resources to grow) And yea, worker is queued after the settler, I still need more of those.

-Thebes: Monument? You're Creative and already have a library in place... worker/lighthouse

Reason for Monument was to put as much culture pressure onto that WK city as possible to steal the banana and dye from him there. Plan for this city was to take over generating scientists once I got the 1st out of Athens, more food would help alot with that.

If you can plant 2 more cities to share food inside your borders, you should still have a shot at this one with proper bulbing for a renaissance war vs. a backwards Shaka or whoever is more fit for it. I say this without being able to look at the save however.

I don't know, seeing as how the only war that's been fought in this game so far has been Shaka vs me, while all of the other civs were left to expand and develop peacefully. My tech situation isnt horrible right now, but seeing as how I couldnt even lay down a single cottage so far it probably wouldn't improve that much in the short-term either

A renaissance war would probably be my only option yes, but even for that I have to get an economy going, and I have a feeling Shaka would come for me again as soon as the forced peace treaty runs out. I dont have anything to bribe him onto another target yet, and in the next war he would have access to catas, so not so "easy" to defend against any more.

In the end I'm not sure I will continue it, I might if I feel brave enough at one point heh. I made some critical mistakes and learnt from them, so at least it was a good lesson for me. I might actually replay it from the start, since I'm confident I could put in much better showing now, but I guess that's to be expected and games where you already know whats going on tend to not be exciting anymore at all.

 

[CHEESE!]

Shaka: stopping people advance levels since 1787.

 

[Bugg123]

The game would've been a lot easier if you settled your W city on a hill, for sure. Get some walls up and 4 archers inside, and you're pretty safe. (Tried it 1S of your location and had no problem surviving getting ganged by Shaka+HC)

Also, could you have expanded a bit quicker? Seems like you could get more of the land to your north? (tried that as well)

As for research. Why bother going for IW? You have copper, and really only need archers to defend initially. Offensively I'm not really sure you're gonna need the Iron anyways in this game? Seems like beakers will be better spent getting Masonry and going for Aest. (I did, and kept up good on tech initially. You have a lot of beakers here)

Should be ok to get 6-7 good city sites up here.