Slow playing my first Deity game (Dutchies)

[yyeah]

Yea at least one blocker. This plains hill looks good near warrior.
I dont know where to block on south is it even worth it or need it...
point is to have 6 decent cities out of it
Archery is ezy chooice with that many commerce i have no problem going for it.
BW no copper -> Archery.
With Archers one can settle further without worries.

 

[cseanny]

@ BIC

I thought size 6 would be easy with pottery but you don't have enough food. In my game I went size 4 > Settler > Archer > Archer > and then stagnated at size 5 for quite a long time. I didn't get a granary in my Capital til quite late actually (after Cons and Catas) and slow built to size 6. Really needed to max hammers into other stuff ^^. At 1000 BC I had a Capital + 5 more cities with 10 more turns needed for GS to finish. Capital had 7 Sharable with close empire and I was working on getting Cath to Friendly (which I eventually did).

And the numbers of how long it takes to grow and other equations ^^^^, I really have no clue. I mostly play by intuition and experience. I'm not a numbers guy at all. Sure that hurts sometimes.

 

[MegaLurker]

Deity Oracles can go in the 2500s so while it's certainly possible there's no guarantee. Additionally you're strategic resource is very far away which makes going for the Oracle plus getting hammers for protection units and expansion too challenging. Imo, on Deity you have time for 1 strategic resource only. So that rules out AH for me.

Also, you're Capital is low of initial hammers with the rice and 2 gems. So while it might be possible in this situation to actually research AH in time you'd be hard pressed to get enough hammers to make things work in a safe and timely manner. If Copper was closer then no biggies - you have tons of trees but it still takes a few turns with low initial hammer Capital to get the extra workers out to take advantage of chops.

On the Oracle :
Given you have a strong commerce, low hammer start, I do not think it's worth it.
The Oracle would cost almost as much as a worker and a settler. I'd think you will be better off developping standard and getting the extra city and workforce.

Agreed with both of you. The Oracle on Deity is a huge gamble no matter what. I've seen it go in 2800BC. On lower difficulties it's great because the ability to slingshot to an expensive tech gives you a huge return in beakers for hammers. And that's all the Oracle boils down to: trading hammers for research before you can just build research.

It's a bit of a paradox at this difficulty: a high commerce start means you can get the Oracle more reliably, and also aim for a better tech than Monarchy with it. But if you already have so much early commerce you don't need that hammers-for-beakers trade. And you take almost no risk using that commerce to beeline something like Alpha that you can get to fast enough to get similar trade value from it as, say, CoL or even Metal Casting from the Oracle.

In this case you have lots of hammers in the form of forests, but that's a one-time deal. I weigh the Oracle gamble against guaranteed faster expansion and come to the same conclusion as BiC and Cseanny: forget the oracle, grab as much land as you can and the gems will get you to Currency one way or another no matter what.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

That went pretty badly. I simply didn't have time to block anyone, as I was beset by a horde of barbs (really big difference from imm) from pretty much all sides and had to get some archers out. Meanwhile, SB has expanded like crazy in the north, and is pretty much forcing Catherine to go southeast... le sigh. Oh, and I went back to 100% research too late...
Anyhow, this is how it looks now.

Spoiler :

It really is a shame, as blocking probably would have been good, but blocking when barbs are swarming over your land is quite difficult. I probably should have turned my scouting warrior back sooner, which would have busted some barbs, surely. The fact that Ragnar retreated his roaming archers and cath build a wall probably didn't help either.

 

[cseanny]

I'm guessing the delay in Archery meant a lack of units fogbusting and you had some problems with Barbs. With a gem start and all those forest 1600 BC and 7turns from Math seems somewhat behind pace. I know you said you forgot to reasearch it sooner?? If so go back to previous save cause this is a HUGE hammer delay at this point in the game. In my game I actually stole a worker from Ragnar which definitely sped things up for me (and slowed him down). I had Math at 1880 BC and had settled my 5th new city by 1240 BC.

Tip - stealing workers from AGG AI's is almost always a safe bet because they will make peace quick. Ironically peaceful and regular AI's (especially on Deity) take forever or don't give peace. It's why virtually every top peaceful Hall of Fame game uses Agressive AI's as a game option. It makes stealing workers (even on Deity) viable, slows down the tech pace (makes the units you have last longer!) and lets you bribe, declare, peace almost at will.

Your game. Where to go from here? I'd say settle 1 or 2 more cities while teching towards Construction and make an attempt with an Axe/Spear/Cata war vs Ragnar. Try to bribe in Cathy to war as well otherwise she'll focus on you. I made the comment in my previous post that even if you had lots of land to settle the quality of your neighbors would make it impossible to do. Imo you're forced into war sooner than later. While it would be nice to settle more than 4 or 5 total cities, given your current situation, you really don't have time.

Good luck and keep us informed.

edit: Why aren't you using Bat (bug and bull combined) or some other useful tool/mod. It makes whip overflow, AI plotting, power rating, what they will trade, when they will take peace or capitulate, overlays, map finder tools ^, etc etc. Really, I couldn't play the game w/out it.

 

[MegaLurker]

I didn't need archers? Maybe lucky, but an early second city by the bronze to build axemen seemed pretty safe? Only needed one...to take out the single spearman SB sent after declaring war super early. Inexplicable, he must be on the other side of Cathy but doesn't have open borders, why did he plot on me? He had a different worst enemy and everything. Weird game.

Map is so crowded I would think you could fogbust with warriors alright more often than not.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Sorry people for bailing on this.

Real life got in the way and my interest in civ 4 went to a bit of a dip as well.

I'll give this one another try at some point in the future, maybe replaying a bit.
Thanks for all the help though!