Question about bottled in starts on high difficulty

[Blitzrr]

Recently while playing an offline game I encountered this start.

Spoiler :

(Ulundi has two fishfood down there by the way)

Now, I was playing on Prince and this start wasn't particularly bad (I've seen way worse on this forum) but as I am trying to move up the difficulties it got me thinking - what would you do on this start on deity or immortal?

I managed to get out of this on prince by settling the copper city and axe rushing ragnar - obviously this wouldnt be possible on immortal or deity as Ragnar would beat me to it. Settling past him would be impossible thanks to the convenient mountain range (esp. with the bonus settlers on immortal/deity). The potential for wonders or strong early game teching would be difficult with the one decent and one horsehockey jungle cottage site.

My question is what you pros would do on a start like this if you were playing immortal/deity. If anyone is interested I can include the save file.

However, it's actually worse than this screenshot shows.

Spoiler :

Ragnar's capital is on a hill, he has two sources of metal nearby excluding the copper city you can see in the SS, the start is full isolated sans Ragnar and the other continent has Justinian, Charlemagne and two speedy tech/culture civs. Ragnar also has way more tech potential with two cottage city sites right next to his capital. Also, no horses and no marble, stone or any non-calendar happy resources on the continent (iron in the capital though)

 

[ahcos]

No barb trouble here it seems, insta oracle you can skip everything but mining as you have agriculture with Shaka and beeline for oracle and take something that fits, maybe math -> construction.

Then you have 3 decent cities pre-IW, chop a few cats and smack Ragnar a little. Still, pretty tough start nonetheless, due to the fact that

Spoiler :

you're semi isolated, maybe winnable but hard for certain

 

[NihilZero]

obviously this wouldnt be possible on immortal or deity as Ragnar would beat me to it

On Deity, probably. On Immortal, not necessarily. He might have other spots in the opposite direction that attract him more. I'd say an axe rush is possible here on Immortal, but potentially dificult. You could try an Impi rush, which is superior to a chariot rush if the enemy has no metals, and chariot rushes are a proven method of escaping from nasty pickles like this one (at least up to and including Immortal). It all depends - how close is his metal? Is it in his starting city cross?

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Seeing as you wouldn't know your situation beforehand it would be very difficult indeed. Perhaps impossible since ragnar would likely box you in and declare at some point.

However knowing what you told us you can choke Ragnar, either with archers ( by beelining archery at the beginning ) or warriors ( a bit more risky but faster ). Settle on that copper and get a few axes out and it should be easy to keep ragnar at 2 - 3 cities ( on deity ). Then you just tech to feudalism at your leisure and cap ragnar when you're good and ready. Then you have a whole continent to yourself + 1 vassal to trade with.

Post a save and I'll try it.

 

[Blitzrr]

On Deity, probably. On Immortal, not necessarily. He might have other spots in the opposite direction that attract him more. I'd say an axe rush is possible here on Immortal, but potentially dificult. You could try an Impi rush, which is superior to a chariot rush if the enemy has no metals, and chariot rushes are a proven method of escaping from nasty pickles like this one (at least up to and including Immortal). It all depends - how close is his metal? Is it in his starting city cross?

Spoiler :

He has iron in his fat cross, copper at two good city sites right next to his capital (including the one you see). In my Prince game he settled the copper site to the north and managed to get a few axemen out by the time of the axe rush.

Another problem is the quirky mountain range. I am not sure if the AI tries to avoid settling in sites near the jungle early on but one of my worries even on Prince was that he would settle near the mountain range and negate my trade route with the copper city. I don't know if you can predict where the AI likes to settle but my guess is he would have settled it or the copper site in time.

No barb trouble here it seems, insta oracle you can skip everything but mining as you have agriculture with Shaka and beeline for oracle and take something that fits, maybe math -> construction.

Then you have 3 decent cities pre-IW, chop a few cats and smack Ragnar a little. Still, pretty tough start nonetheless, due to the fact that

Just for fun I tried to edit the save and play just to build oracle.

Spoiler :

Seemed to work on immortal. Justinian starts with marble in his fat cross so I don't know, maybe it is luck dependent.

Post a save and I'll try it.

Here's the WB file. I think I managed to edit it to immortal, seemed to work (the health bonus from prince seems to pervade). Adding the unedited version just in case

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Nvm, I tried and failed 3 times on deity.

The only way to keep him off that metal is by going archery first and choking with archers. Extremely hard to do and Ragnar is a 40% prob unit spammer.

Oracle went 2300 BC ( justinian + marble ), which you can't beat with Shaka. Oracling CoL and teching monarchy was my best guess at how to capitalize off that high food position.

Perhaps not impossible but very close.

 

[yanner39]

The only way to keep him off that metal is by going archery first and choking with archers. Extremely hard to do and Ragnar is a 40% prob unit spammer.

Nothing to contribute to this thread but I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask: what does this mean exactly, 40% prob unit spammer? Does it mean that in 40% of the games the human plays with Ragnar, he will spam a lot of units? I did read a pdf file I found on these boards where it says which civs build alot of units, or a moderate amount, etc...I just don't get the %.

 

[NetGear]

maybe on deity its impossible idk, but i find that in bottled up position they tend to give you a bit better start (you got double irrigated corn in this case, not bad at all), so i don't mind it that much. And as long as you have some sort of strategic resource its not all that impossible to rush down a neighbor. in this case you have forest to work with so that works out rather well.

yanner, basically higher number means they build more units. I dont know the specific either but Im guessing the prob is that he has 40% chance to choose all his production as a unit?

 

[ahcos]

Nothing to contribute to this thread but I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask: what does this mean exactly, 40% prob unit spammer? Does it mean that in 40% of the games the human plays with Ragnar, he will spam a lot of units? I did read a pdf file I found on these boards where it says which civs build alot of units, or a moderate amount, etc...I just don't get the %.

It's simple: in 40% of the time this particular AI will decide to build units instead of anything else in a city, infrastructure for example. And this is for times of peace. Therefore the AI will reach the "critical mass" where it has a much higher powerrating than other civs faster and is even more likely to declare. Afaik Ragnar is tied #1 on the bastardchart, ahead of Monty, Shaka and the other friendly folks.

While at war Ragnar, if i remember correctly, has a 100% unitbuildprob (whereas some other AIs even in wartime only build units 50% of the time).

 

[NihilZero]

Unfortunately the Bastard Chart (love that name ) was never updated for BTS, and the calculations involved are so arcane that I was never able to figure out how to apply them to the new leaders. I can't imagine anybody unseating Ragnar at the top, though, he really is the number one bastard. At least Shaka has a bit of personality.

Is there anybody out there who knows how the bastard rating is calculated?

 

[NihilZero]

Double post! Oh noes!

I tried the map on Immortal. Here's how it went:

Spoiler :

Teched Mining->BW->Wheel, of course. Whipped a settler.



Settled the copper.



I'm not sure if Ragnar wanted the spot as I never saw a settler party, but here's where he settled his second city:



Have you noticed my mistake? That's right, I'm researching Pottery instead of Animal Husbandry. D'oh! This was idiotic as it meant the pigs went unworked for a long, long time. Fishing probably would have been a good idea too as it meant I could work 2-commerce tiles in extremis to avoid going broke. Pottery was just stupid, but I was thinking granaries and whipping.

I couldn't see any metal based units yet, so I DoWed in 1600BC.



Money was a little tight so I helped myself to some hamlets and cottages.



Oh, and I razed Uppsala and the surrounding pillagables.



While this was going on I had Nidaros in a Impi choke-hold while reinforcements including some axemen came along. Ragnar was stacking masses of archers in there, so I backed off to bait him out.

And there goes a settler party, leaving only 2 (!) archers to guard the capital. Hehe.



That's my cue to attack. Those two archers killed most of my army, damn them, but the deed is done.



That was my first attempt. Impi are pretty darned good. If copper had been closer I could have attacked with numbers much sooner rather than having to choke, and probably could have knocked out the capital on turn two of the war. But there was no time to lose as he might have got metal if I delayed any longer.

After this you can choke his last city indefinitely and kill him or show mercy at your leisure.

Save is included for the previous turn so you can have the pleasure of capturing Nidaros for yourself.

 

[Mylene]

Took a quick look, it's probably close to impossible to really win this on Deity.
Sure, you might be able to defend yourself somehow, and later possibly take out Ragnar.
But you are isolated afterwards, and most likely terribly backwards.
The land wouldn't be horrible, but it's not great either.

 

[Blitzrr]

Double post! Oh noes!

I tried the map on Immortal. Here's how it went:

Spoiler :

Teched Mining->BW->Wheel, of course. Whipped a settler.



Settled the copper.



I'm not sure if Ragnar wanted the spot as I never saw a settler party, but here's where he settled his second city:



Have you noticed my mistake? That's right, I'm researching Pottery instead of Animal Husbandry. D'oh! This was idiotic as it meant the pigs went unworked for a long, long time. Fishing probably would have been a good idea too as it meant I could work 2-commerce tiles in extremis to avoid going broke. Pottery was just stupid, but I was thinking granaries and whipping.

I couldn't see any metal based units yet, so I DoWed in 1600BC.



Money was a little tight so I helped myself to some hamlets and cottages.



Oh, and I razed Uppsala and the surrounding pillagables.



While this was going on I had Nidaros in a Impi choke-hold while reinforcements including some axemen came along. Ragnar was stacking masses of archers in there, so I backed off to bait him out.

And there goes a settler party, leaving only 2 (!) archers to guard the capital. Hehe.



That's my cue to attack. Those two archers killed most of my army, damn them, but the deed is done.



That was my first attempt. Impi are pretty darned good. If copper had been closer I could have attacked with numbers much sooner rather than having to choke, and probably could have knocked out the capital on turn two of the war. But there was no time to lose as he might have got metal if I delayed any longer.

After this you can choke his last city indefinitely and kill him or show mercy at your leisure.

Save is included for the previous turn so you can have the pleasure of capturing Nidaros for yourself.

Very nice strategy. I've never done pillage economy or baiting, though that seems like a very good plan so as to utilize the speed of the impis.