[BTS] Prince Player Tries Deity.

[Anysense]

Agree with Fippy about AH. The capital is rather weak without cows, it can hardly help to build the GLH earlier. You will have to sacrifice a great deal to build it.
@PsychopathicWarmonger you have been downright careless about barbs, I'm surprised you haven't got slaughtered.
The island cities give +2 traderouts because they are deemed intercontinental. Such cities are very useful, particularly with the GLH. The one on the island south of the capital can borrow 1 clam from the latter.
Don't expect much from this game. Semi isolation with such a nasty git for a neighbour is difficult and a poor start doesn't make it easier.
I made a quick run and noticed something very interesting

Spoiler :

Looks like we have connection with another continent

 

[Major Tom]

Also, to the advice above: there's no food source on the island, won't it only be a small city? And why would it give +2 trade routes to my coastal cities?

Not 2 traderoutes, but 2 commerce, instead of 1 on mainland. Perhaps there is even horses/iron on that grassland tile.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Alright, so I ploughed on, and had to reload earlier saves several times because of Barbarian hordes entering my territory:

Spoiler :

Once


and then twice:

I pumped out Archers to push them out. I haven't seen any for several turns now. They appear to have all have come at once. (?)
I acquired the Copper, and researched Sailing to connect my two cities.
Good news is also this, when I researched Animal Husbandry;

Spoiler :

Horse resource within my territory. XD

So my plan for the moment, if anyone thinks I should do differently, is to research Masonry, get the GLH up and running, and then hopefully with another border pop I can get that Stone and build the Pyramids and possibly the Great Wall. Barbarians are such a pest to deal with. :\

 

[Anysense]

So my plan for the moment, if anyone thinks I should do differently, is to research Masonry, get the GLH up and running, and then hopefully with another border pop I can get that Stone and build the Pyramids and possibly the Great Wall. Barbarians are such a pest to deal with. :\

The Great Wall has been built ages ago, it is usually built between 2400 and 2000 BC. It's also too late for Mids and GLH. You better focus on expansion and setting up economy rather than builing wonders. Spawnbust is another thing. Barbs can't spawn within 2 tiles around player's units and barbarian cities can't spawn in the visible area. So your units should be outside your territory rather than sit in cities.

 

[Fippy]

No worries yyeah, i also enjoy those discussions

Imo it's a Pyras (more time) map, while GLH is very strong this start does not fit well for it and can easily be lost on deity.
I have lost many great lighthouses with quicker starts.

If Pyras fail you usually get very nice amounts of failgold, with stone.
So it hurts less, for GLH a good amount of expansion has to be sacrificed.

Yyeah has a good point about horsies cannot be in your bfc here, but creative changes things a bit.
(funny that's what happened here very close).
They can be grabbed easier with Cre.

Barb troubles also result from early workboats, yup.
No warriors or very few built for fogbusting.
I would feel really uncomfortable with fishing first here, maybe it works for some players but i would avoid that production hole.

 

[yyeah]

I dl this bat mode and have made some tests all to turn 48

1

Spoiler :

fishing->mining->bw->sailing->mansonry

2

Spoiler :

ah-fishing-mining-bw-sailing-mansonry and settle stone site 1st

3

Spoiler :

same tech path like in 2nd test but settle copper spot

In 1st attpmpt i had GLH in 1120BC in 2nd 950bc didnt check 3th.
What can isay about this is in 1st i was ahed in tech +/- ahead of for example mathematics.
No mids since some1 bulid it in 1120BC.

But 2nd try was preety interesting i beocuse,i was rexing slightly faster ( was i ?), and manage to bulid GLH in 950BC and the Mids in late7xx BC in 3th city.

3th try didnt check it but i belive its something between.

So with mids in this 2nd attemp one can catch up in later stages in the game i belive without it, can be dificult.

You can check it and make your own conclusions.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

I'm too late for any of the big wonders, it seems. XD
I tried rolling back a few auto-saves to chop the GLH but I was 4-5 turns to late on all occasions.

So I committed to expanding. I connected the Horse to my network, so no more Barbarian problems, hopefully.
I have 3 more sites settled and another 2 planned.
The first of my newly settled sites was by the eastern seaboard where, it was suggested, would make a good Maoi site;

Spoiler :

and the other 2 down south, one of which I plotted beside a source of Ivory;

My next two sites are the island beside Thebes and the Sugar site. I was originally going to leave the Sugar site until later but I I've been surprised at the expansion rate of Van-Oranje. He's moving quite aggresively towards my territory;

Spoiler :

My tech path after Animal Husbandry was: Writing->Mathematics
There's plenty of forest around so I wanted to get some use of some extra hammers from chops.

I believe there's probably a window of opportunity for me to push against the Dutch with War Elephants, once I get Mathematics. That means I could secure the Gems in Van-Oranje's newly-settled site.

On a side-note I also encountered the Portuguese, who have constructed both the Great Wall and the Pyramids;

Spoiler :

 

[elmurcis]

Hmm... just few things to ask to get some "picture" - why building Moai without Stone? Its nice National Wonder but without Stone 100% boost loss is huge when its Deity and every hammer counts.
And another question about South city (Alexandria) - why not 1 tile North on Corn? It is dry Corn (5 food tile) without any chance to be irrigated even after Civil Service. Same time could get Ocean Fish (original 5F1C, later 6F1C tile) + 1 food from center tile.

 

[catalin72]

Is here a spoiler like this,a game described HUGE size deity with events,all play standard size,all are experts in standard size without events ?

 

[Anysense]

Hmm... just few things to ask to get some "picture" - why building Moai without Stone? Its nice National Wonder but without Stone 100% boost loss is huge when its Deity and every hammer counts.

Yeah building Moai without stone while it so readily available is an odd move. I only want to add that at this point there are more important things to build like settlers, workers and a boat to explore the other continent.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

@elmurcis : I didn't want to settle on the Corn because It'd lose its food value, would it not? The city tile converts to 2F 1H 1C on any tile it's settled on, right?
Although I suppose you could be right. The Fish would provide more than the Corn if exploited, another rookie mistake XD. I'll roll back a save or two and resettle the city.

I'll switch the Maoi site to a Galley aswell, to explore the other continent, at least until a border pop takes the Stone.


Edit :
I reloaded the 975BC save and went from there. I settled Alexandria on the Corn, and put my Maoi city to work on a Galley instead. I've discovered The Babylonians east of the Portuguese, both having Buddhism as their State Religion, so there's an immediate team-in-the-making.

Spoiler :

I also settled the site on the Capital-side island, and to who mentioned that the city gets exra for being inter-continental;

Spoiler :

I understand what you meant now. XD

My other cities;

Spoiler :

Also I've noticed in the trade window that the Portuguese have Gold they're willing to trade. However they'd only accept Copper for it so I didn't trade anything. I'll sure want that Gold in the future though.

 

[Anysense]

I see you are researching at 10%. You have put a lot of beakers into math but might not need it when its finished. If you haven't got enough money to research something at 100% rate then it's better to set the slider to 0 and accumulate gold. Once you've got enough gold you can quickly get the tech you need. Such approach has two major advantages:
1. The distance between the decision what to research and the end of the research is very short. Therefore the risk of getting wrong tech is small.
2. If you build a few libraries or an academy while accumulating gold you will spend it more efficiently.

 

[ManUnited4Ever]

@elmurcis : I didn't want to settle on the Corn because It'd lose its food value, would it not? The city tile converts to 2F 1H 1C on any tile it's settled on, right?

Not exactly. If a settled tile naturally produces more than 2F, 1H or 1C, then the city will get that yield instead of the standard value. An unimproved Corn tile on Grassland will yield 3F, so a city settled on that tile would yield 3F because 3F is greater than 2F. Dry Wheat, Corn or Rice on Grassland tiles are prospective tiles to settle cities, because you only miss out on 2F by not farming the resource instead of 3F as you would with wet farm resources. Sugar is particularly attractive to settle on in the early game, because you can't improve that resource until Calendar anyway. Note that Flood plains are exceptions to this mechanic.

I see you are researching at 10%. You have put a lot of beakers into math but might not need it when its finished. If you haven't got enough money to research something at 100% rate then it's better to set the slider to 0 and accumulate gold. Once you've got enough gold you can quickly get the tech you need. Such approach has two major advantages:
1. The distance between the decision what to research and the end of the research is very short. Therefore the risk of getting wrong tech is small.
2. If you build a few libraries or an academy while accumulating gold you will spend it more efficiently.

I'd like to add a point here to what Anysense wrote. The beakers you get from commerce are always rounded down after the slider multiplication. Imagine you have 14 total commerce and your slider set to 70 %. This yields floor(14*0,7) beakers = floor(9,8) beakers = 9,0 beakers. That means you lose 8,9 % of your science. The same rounding applies to the bonuses you get from tech-known-by-met-civilizations and prerequisite-techs, so it's possible to lose nearly two beakers per turn.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Done some more on this;
I have planned several sites for island-cities, in light of the advice I recieved on inter-continental trade;

Spoiler :

It appears that the western chunk of our continent has not yet been colonised, so I'm off to fill in the gaps.
I also founded several other cities to stop the Dutch from claiming any more territory.

My economy fell to strikes some turns ago, I switched some tile allocations around and began the recovery.
The Stone resource came under my territory. I improved that an have it connected, and at the same time beginning construction of the Maoi wonder;

Spoiler :

I also traded some Corn away in return for Gems from the Dutch, I believe. Extra happiness is always welcome. Although I suppose I'll have to cancel that deal in future if I make a move against the Dutch.

 

[elmurcis]

If you are going into strike before Currency - no more new cities for some time (atleast until you can build Wealth in cities if need)... And use Library to run 2 scientists for 1st Great Scientist.
Can see that this map gives big land for each player (every AI 10+ cities) and that hurts human player most (because of huge maintence cost, if compare to Prince level)
And what about tech trading? Anything possible?
More detailed comments will come from better guys but thats "quick" overview on situation.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

Tech trading is impossible at the moment. The AI has everything I need and everything I already have. I can only trade Ivory and Copper for the juicy stuff but unfortunately at most turns the AIs have no money to trade.
I gave the Portuguese some Wheat, I think, for 10 GPT. That brought me out of my recession, but I'm still skating at 0%.
I captured the barbarian city due west, and noticed at the same time that the Dutch have expanded towards the islands I'm waiting to claim.

Spoiler :

I'm the lowest-scoring civilization at the moment.... feels a little demeaning. XD

I somehow neglected researching Pottery until a few turns ago. Probably down to the ocean-side commerce providing me with all of the commerce I've needed so far. :\
My only real advantage at the moment is the Ivory, meaning War Elephants. :\

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

It's looking like I've been outpaced by the AI, the only advantage I held throughout this game was my Ivory, I was beaten everywhere else. XD
I have a clearer idea now of how aggresively and powerfully the AI plays at on Deity level now. Thanks for all of the help, everyone.