Stairway to Heaven: my first Deity game

[sampsa]

Thanks, shakabrade! Have to test it a bit I guess. Not that I don't believe you, but just to see the difference.

Thanks, BIC, I'm sure that is very useful info to beginning players. Probably my recollection that the forge bonus acts different than the other bonuses was wrong, or has been patched.

 

[pomthom]

@shakabrade
Wow that is an unconventional opening! Instinctively it doesn't sound right but hell that's always the case with unconventional stuff

Waiting so many turns just to improve your first tile (not to mention working 4 unimproved tiles) seems slow to me... if you had more forests maybe (as BIC mentioned in his Rusten example). Plus I don't get the fog-busting argument: you would have to deal only with animals so no risk of trespassing. Following your course of action however, I would whip a Worker rather than a Settler so as to make up for the lost Worker turns.

 

[shakabrade]

@shakabrade
Wow that is an unconventional opening! Instinctively it doesn't sound right but hell that's always the case with unconventional stuff

Waiting so many turns just to improve your first tile (not to mention working 4 unimproved tiles) seems slow to me... if you had more forests maybe (as BIC mentioned in his Rusten example). Plus I don't get the fog-busting argument: you would have to deal only with animals so no risk of trespassing. Following your course of action however, I would whip a Worker rather than a Settler so as to make up for the lost Worker turns.

I haven't done the maths to prove it but if you have 3 FPs you can grow to size 3 in ~14 turns and size 4 in ~19 turns. On T20 you whip a worker and on T21 you can have 3 warriors (one is starting warrior) and a worker. I'd prefer OFing into second worker which will also be chopped by the first worker, when you get AH, you have 2 workers on it, therefore, it is done in 2 turns and you can have cottages on FPs sooner since they take a lot of worker turns. First settler can be either whipped or chopped. Still don't know which is better.

T22 my start (with warior, worker, worker, warrior build in mind):

City is size 2 (2F in food bin), you have produced 96 and 251 with Palace.
Techs: BW, Hunting, 21%.
Units, 2 Warriors, a Worker and 6 in new worker plus 1/3 forest chop.

I am doing this calculation in my head and on the paper so I could be very wrong.

T22 settling on wine hill: to be calculated... Now I'll post so I don't waste this.

302C, 98H, 3 wars and a worker, 8 hammers in a worker build

size 1, 12 in the bin.


I better check it again. Or just play it once I get to the computer.

Edit:
Now I changed builds (forgot about some stuff) and my start vs. normal start results are: +15F (size 2(5 in bin) vs. size 1 (12 in bin)), +7H, -35C. Units are the same, improvements are: 1T in ivory vs. Camp on ivory, 2T on Pigs. When cottages are in, my start gets huge advantage and can also share Pigs for the second city.

My start seems better cause it can 2whip second worker or settler sooner than normal build (1 whip second worker or slow build settler at size 2).

 

[pomthom]

Checking on my write-up, at turn 23 I had:
- Hunting > AH > ~40% of BW
- Worker, Warrior, Warrior, + 16 in a 2nd Worker
- Elephants and Pigs improved
- City size 1

 

[shakabrade]

It had to happen:

I lost the game.

Spoiler :

Elepulted Toku for 12 cities total in 250AD, including island cities, was about to kill Roosvelt with trebs and capture all the important wonders to skyrocket my incomes and GPP (GLH, Colossus and some other wonders) and then:

AP screen appeared with religious victory, I abstained and didn't pay attention cause I had more important work to do (killing Roosy), and then, at 660AD, I lost.

The winner was

Spoiler :

Kublai Khan (Hindu, who got votes from Hammurabi (peacevassal), and Julius Caesar.

At least Capital was a monster .

 

[Doshin]

Unlucky, SB. I've only ever had that happen to me once.

Visual summary of my game:

Spoiler :

Thanks for the game, pomthom.

 

[shakabrade]

, Doshin!

How the hell Lib at 1000AD on Pangaea?

Edit: I see everyone got his religion in your game.

I think huts and events have no influence on the game compared to religion distribution which really affects every aspect of the game and are totally RNG dependent: safety through attitude, research through, well attitude trades, espionage through 40% discount for a shrine, war through: we don't want to fight our brothers and sisters of the faith, and AP Jihads/Crusades, economy through happiness, hammer boost with OR and AP hammers, GPP from Pacifism. And you can't know for sure how many missionaries and auto-spreads will you get. Each spread is 40 hammers + future value of early spreads ; while active spread has opportunity cost from having to build missionaries yourself. And I forgot to mention religious VC . Forgot about it again. Lol. And then we say shadows and XOTMs are played on the same map...

Now, off to thinking what kind of map to give us for some fun prior to SGOTM, haha, a mystery and intrigue. Now, I have to teach my wife how to generate maps and what isolation is once I get home...

Nice map, pomthom, BTW. Thanks!

 

[pomthom]

Really nice Doshin
Bad luck shakabrade, without that AP vote things would have been looking pretty promising (I guess I would have done OK too if not for that peace vassal...)

Thanks for the game, pomthom.

No problem! I'll probably post Stairway to Heaven #2 soon, with Pacal or Willem most likely

 

[shakabrade]

Bad luck shakabrade, without that AP vote things would have been looking pretty promising (I guess I would have done OK too if not for that peace vassal...)

There are things you can do to avoid this defeat. You can postpone a war effort, switch religion to Hindu in my case and, under OR, whip missionaries for spreading to all cities. That buys you time to get to Steel after which you attack someone Hindu (right after some vote so you don't get AP forced to peace or that you don't get crusaded. Then you win considerably later than normal but you win.

Peace vassals are really PITA. And I don't get why can't a player peacevassal then. Peace vassaling tech leaders are so unnatural thing to happen.

 

[pomthom]

I've just re-read shakabrade's opening here, very interesting...

@shaka: how often have you tried this grow-to-whip first approach?

 

[shakabrade]

I've just re-read shakabrade's opening here, very interesting...

@shaka: how often have you tried this grow-to-whip first approach?

Couple of times. Whenever enough of Flood Plains are present. They are pretty decent tile (grassland river farm). Especially when you can grow to size 3 in 14T and you need 15T for a worker. I remember being on Pangaea with Rome (Imperialistic). I wanted to claim the land and have whipped 3 settlers before any worker was produced.

You can see that on this map this approach won against wet wine hill (financial leader) which gets 12T workers out.

I was bored with civving and have tried unconventional stuff. Some stuff proved to be better. But the usual approach is usual because it is usually better.

Since I play couple of games per year, I can't develop a habit and have to think more while playing. When I was playing a game every 2-3 days, I had many bad habits which I just transfered to the next map. It usually lead to boring generic games (Cuir rush, for instance) and also missing on the map specific opportunities.