I've never played a full Deity game, and never entered GOTM, but I was bouyed up by the silent shadow game I played on GOTM 19, and I figured I had picked up so much good advice around here that it was worth a try this month. However, I was timid enough to go for Conquest class.
After several different practice Deity starts I knew the pattern. The barbs would kill my exploring warriors, the AI would suffocate my careful attempts to build settlers and develop the terrain, and I would find I had zero bargaining power at some point in the tech race and throw in the towel. Or the AI'd just decide I was in their way and dispose of my cute little civilization.
So I opened the Conquest start file and moved a couple of treasure chests and that's where the culture shock began. Cattle! Wheat! Incense! The fog-gurus were right, and this might not be an early massacre! I decided to move before settling, and research Writing and Literature at minimum, aiming for the Great Library shortly after 1000 BC. And so far the game has been kind to me.
My timeline is
here. Like many who founded Madrid on the hill I qualified for this thread at 975 BC instead of 1000 BC. But hey, this is my first QSC, so I'm just amazed to be able to submit a Deity timeline that doesn't end with "Ferdinand of Spain, R.I.P".
At 1000 BC I had 177 gold, 13 cities and two settlers in transit.
Population was 42. Iron, Horses and Incense were hooked up. Dyes, Furs and ivory are secured and will be on line in a few turns.
Forces were 11 Swordsmen, 4 Warriors, 7 Spanish Workers, 6 guest workers and two Defenders.
There were 7 temples, 5 barracks, 2 granaries and 1 harbour.
My score of 517 was joint second of the known civs.
F11 demographics puts Spain at #1 in all except:
- area (#3 and climbing fast)
- disease (#8 - those flood plains, but no deaths yet)
- life expectancy (#3 - too much of the whip?)
- military service (#11 and last - military build-up comes next)
Highlights are:
The Start
Moved chests and workers to get a good view all round.
I checked out F10 to see who might be our neighbours. Europe/Middle East/Africa are likely to be grouped, with the Americas and Far East somewhere else, so I figured England and Zulu might be close and trade around Pottery fast enough that I don't need to research it myself. So started Writing at 40-turn rate.
My priorities were:
1. Explore for contacts and good territory.
2. Grab some good territory early - my Deity training sessions had me conditioned.
3. Defend the territory and treasury - we had 85 gold as starters and were going to get more with all this river country.
I reviewed Cracker's criteria for moving the settler:
1. Is the start on a bonus tile? No.
2. Is the start hostile or isolated? No. wherever we move we are going to be working flood plains, so we'll just have to live/die with the disease.
3. Is it one tile from the coast? Yes.
4. Is there a military advantage to a move? Yes, the hill gives a defense bonus as well as much better resources for a 4-turn settler farm.
So I moved the first settler to the hill. The second went 2 tiles west to found Barcelona as a coastal city. [That was not the cleverest thing to do, as we don't need sea access for quite a while yet so this city has half a city perimeter. Ho hum!
]
I used two chests to build warriors in Madrid to get out and explore asap. The third went to Barcelona to accelarate a barracks as its first build. I needed more explorers and military, and I didn't want to build a lot of regulars!
Madrid built a Defender after the two warriors, and Barcelona built one a thousand years later. That was all I built before I felt a pressing need to find iron, and traded for Bronze and then Iron Working. I'm not sure the Defenders did anything useful given the lack of barbs and the distant AI starts, but maybe they helped to fend off tribute demands, as I have received none so far.
Trading
Moonsinger's trading exercises gave me much more confidence to keep the tech race under control. Before I would have panicked and shifted the science slider and messed up, but now I was able to stay cool and spot the good times to go for a trade.
Key trading moments ...
2630 BC I met Keltoi in the south and England in the north east, in the same turn. I was worried about finding iron and wanted to find out how far behind in the tech race I was, and I had cash, so I bought Bronze and Warrior Code from France for 163 gold. That concluded my brief production run of two Defenders. But it reassured me that they didn't have HBR or IW yet. I bought Iron Working later from France in a one-off gpt deal.
2110 BC I completed Writing and started Literature. Most contacts already had it by this time, but I swapped it for Masonry with Keltoi. I bought HBR from India for gpt and swapped it for Mysticism and cash with England.
1625 BC saw the big Map Making round. India had researched it earlier, but was asking telephone numbers for it. Now several civs had it. I bought it from my bargain basement tech dealer, France for a gpt deal to maintain cash liquidity.
After a complex sequence of furious alternating map swaps and tech deals I finished that turn with a full map of the continent and all the known techs and 114 extra gold, roughly balanced by 8gpt to France. I was ahead of three civs and at par with the other three.
1200 BC saw a new twist for me. Keltoi and France signed an Alliance against Zululand and I thought this might present an opportunity.
Zululand was the most powerful military civ on the continent at the time, but is as far away from me as is possible. I had no outstanding 20-turn deals with them to mess up my rep, and I discovered that France would bribe me to ally with her - she had previously built an embassy in Madrid - so I took Currency for my trouble. I then bought an embassy in Entremont, and Brennus gave me a 30 gold net profit to join the same alliance. I figured I could sit out the 20 turns. I had a warrior stranded down south that I could ask to make the supreme sacrifice and futile gesture of attacking a Zulu city, just so I could say I tried.
Six turns later, in 1000 BC, I belatedly remembered that I had seen wounded Ottoman soldiers near Zululand while exploring. I checked F4 and confirmed Ottoman were also at war with Shaka. They also had kindly invested in a Madrid embassy previously, so I pledged a few coins and my undying allegience to their cause (well, for 20 turns) for Construction.
I just hope this phony war doesn't back-fire on me! Shaka's now prepared to pay for peace, but I don't want it at least until I've made a token attack to preserve my rep.
In 975 BC I discovered Literature. That got me Polytheism and cash and I qualified for this thread.
At various times I also spotted workers for sale, and I added 6 to my multinational workforce for around 27 gold each.
City Planning
Five inner cities are placed in a three tile diameter ring around Madrid, and then they are driven by resources and bonuses and the need to drive towards the competing AIs - France to the south, England and Keltoi to the north east.
I only found the north east land bridges relatively late, and England and Keltoi have managed to build three cities on *my* space. At present I am applying a cultural squeeze to these with whipped temples in several frontier towns. That was aother trick I've learned here. The cheap temples allow a new city to build for 11 turns, expanding to pop 2, then the second citizen gets sacrificed for 19 shields and we have an 11-turn temple. I think I've done it half a dozen times now to get cultural expansion, and it certainly shows in my culture histograph. Beautiful!
I particularly enjoyed the way my iron town south of Madrid got the name Toledo, as this is the world-famous center of excellence for beautiful traditional Spanish metalwork. But I had to dig out my European road atlas to find new city names after Ciudad de la Luna started repeating. The first couple I invented at 2 am were not really appropriate!
The Other Civs
France seemed to be trying for an OCC at one point, and I began to wonder if everyone else had gone fishing because I couldn't find them. When I did meet them they were all huddled in the inhospitable half of the continent. They are going to get very jealous and want a piece of my prime real estate, I think.
Ottomans look like they started with one or two extra settlers in my game. Zulu were strong for a while, but not as powerful as Suleyman, and the alliance seems to be cutting them down nicely. Ottoman are also fading.
The Barbarians
I couldn't resist popping the hut on the inland sea shore. It was in jungle and the warrior was my first vet, so I figured he might survive. Two barb warriors appeared and he lost to the second one
And that's it on land! Not so much sedentary as comatose.
However, I have seen lots of squid at sea, and lost two galleys to them. exploring is going to be a challenge, and no one else seems to have taken to the sea yet to help kill them off.
Conquest Class Bonuses
The extra units reduced the AI's edge at the start. I don't know whether my two Defenders made any difference to AI attitude. They saw no action in the first 80 turns an will probably just sit there like sleepy pikemen for whatever is left of the game. If I'd known then what I know now about the level of difficulty of this set-up, I'd have played with the bigger boys in the Open class. can't go back now, though ...
Sorry for this long post, but this has been real fun, and I enjoyed writing it up. TImeline and file will be in the mail Real Soon Now (TM).
Thanks Cracker. A great way to spend a ton of time
[edited to fix an incorrect link]
![[ptw]](/images/smilies/ptw.gif "PTW Icon [ptw]")
1.21f-open
. I didn't think I'd ever complain about the slow tech pace in a diety game! Eventually entered middle ages in 775BC when Currency, Monarchy and Republic became available. Slow tech may have been influenced by me not researching anything after Pottery, but then I can't imagine many players are researching their own techs.
I don't think I've seen a diety civ back down before!
Both of this towns have zero culture.
