Standard deity playthrough (2)

[Pedro78]

Hey everyone!

Here I come with another playthrough, as the previous one has showed it is a good way for me to get better at civ4, and (who knows?) maybe for some less experienced players to learn new strategies. I will also try to play more carefully than I did on the last game, as the start and overall situation might not be as forgiving this time.

This time I will do my best to give more detailed posts. I will also (at least in the beggining of the game) detail how I micro-manage city production and workers, as playing an optimal opening is the holy grail and (after reading some HoF writeups) I'm pretty sure my micro-managing skills need quite some improvement.

This is a deity, fractal, normal speed, NHNE, everything else standard game. Leader is Mehmed II of the Ottomans.
I basically re-rolled map and leader until I could find a start that is non-coastal (just didn't feel like going GLH and all the coastal stuff right now), non single-plain-cows and not double corn and gold.

What I think about Mehmed :

His traits (Organized and Expansive) are both ok traits, but they synergize quite well for a strong opening. Starting with the Wheel and Agriculture make him a good leader in my opinion. His UB (+2 aqueduct) is nice. I'm not too crazy about the Janisary rush though.

The start :

Looks like a nice spot for bureau cap. SIP would give PH city center i.e. 10T starting worker with expansive trait. Move warrior 1W or 1SW?

Even if you're not a deity player, your advice/questions is/are of course welcome!

Edit : I attached the starting save, if anyone wants to play it.

For those who want to play it but wonder if it is isolated :

Spoiler :

It is not isolated

 

[catalin72]

Corn is in left of photo,maybe other resource is in right,move down to the settler.

 

[Pedro78]

Turns 0 to 26 (4000BC - 2960BC) :

Spoiler :

T0 (4000BC) -

Settled in place after moving warrior 1W :

Can definitely be a strong bureau cap, a little low on food though.
Having the first worker on T10 is soo awesome.
Gonna hold back on tech until T5 in case I meet anyone this early.

From now tech plan is Mining - BW - (Hunting - Archery) - Pottery
This would result in pretty late barb defenses if I don't find copper, but with such low food I really wanna be able to chop ASAP.

T5 (3800BC) -

Warrior going north reveals eeeh land, let's hope there is some kind of sea food to go with it :

Haven't met anyone yet, so research set to mining.

T7 (3720BC) -

Just met the first guy, looks like he is quite far up north :

I like Augustus much more than his evil twin JC ^^

T9 (3640BC) -

Got mining.
I still have no clue about where Augustus is, let's move the warrior back south to scout for a second city spot.

T10 (3600BC) -

Worker/Build plans :

Worker will do farm first, then mine the hill 1W, then mine 2E. This will take 15 turns, i.e. perfect timing for chopping as soon as BW comes in.

City will build 2 warriors while growing to size 3. When reaching size 3 it will miss 3 to finish the warrior, so 1 more turn working a food tile instead of the mine. So it will start building a settler in 12 turns, which will absorb the worker chop.

T18 (3280BC) -

Found Augustus, not exactly where I expected him to be... what I thought to be ocean turned out to be a lake :

From his positionning, I don't see him expanding into me as a big threat.
This corn + gold spot looks awesome, not sure if I should grab it, Augustus will probably get it before me anyways.

T21 (3160BC) -

Augustus adopts slavery, quite early BW as usual for Romans. I'm glad that Augustus isn't nearly as likely to pret-rush me as JC would.

T22 (3120BC) -

Overview of the explored land :

A nice corn+fish city spot, the rest of it looks pretty bleak, though. Gonna have a hard time growing cottages if I can't get any decent helper cities...

Build/Worker plans :

As soon as the worker is done with the mine, he moves 2N to chop. This results in turn 30 settler + 6 overflow into another worker.

T26 (2960BC) -

Bronze working reveals copper far down south :

Settling for the copper would probably kill my economy, especially as this won't be a good city until at least iron working. I'm thinking about skipping both copper and Archery and going straight for Pottery. There are some forested hills up north, and I don't have much land to fogbust down south, so a couple of warriors for fogbusting would probably cut it. Still not sure about that but I really hate going for Archery when I don't absolutely have to.

I think I will REx north and settle the jungle last. Still don't know about the corn + gold spot, Augustus hasn't taken it yet.

Still haven't met anyone else, I really hope I'm not semi-isolated with Augustus...

 

[Pedro78]

@catalin72 : one can see jungle 3S1W of the settler, so I wouldn't move south. Moving 1NE would give me a whole lot of flatland plain tiles which I don't want of. Moving 1E might give another resource, but it might also loose a horse/copper in the tiles that are 2W and 1N2W of the starting position, plus it would waist 1 turn. I would rather move the warrior 1W to see if there is anything really desirable in the North-West (like gold or irrigated wheat), and settle in place if there is nothing. The production boost from the plain hill saves 2-3 turns on the first worker, and allows you to get out 2 warriors instead of 1 before the first settler.

 

[dutchfire]

Grabbing the gold would be nice, but slightly to the west, a corn+lighthoused lake tiles would make a nice GP farm.
Cow + FP to the north, Fish+Corn to the NW look like solid sites. 3E would be a decent cottage helper city (but otherwise useless), 3S-ish could be a good cottage helper and could also be useful later on. I'd like to know if there's seafood in the SE.

The capital looks like a very decent cottage city.

 

[Pedro78]

@dutchfire :

Spoiler :

Getting a GP farm out of the corn would be nice, but I think if I ever get this city it will be right between the corn and gold, and maybe get another city 3W from it later on. The reason for that is the corn is too far away from my capital to justify taking it as a second city, and the Romans will grab it pretty quickly anyways, so it is probably 2nd city or nothing.

Seafood in the SE would be really nice, I still have a tiny hope that there is a fish 4E from the capital.
Yeah settling 3S1E would definitely be a good cottage helper city.

If I can grow cottages fast enough, the capital definitely has the potential to be a badass Oxford spot

More general questions to anyone who sees this :

When do you usually get your 2nd GS? I tend to remain in slavery for too long, and almost never get a 2nd GS before lib when I don't have marble for GLib and quick NE (always build the NE though, but its only purpose is usually to get out GMs for upgrades).

How do you plan cottage growth? Hamlets and villages grow by themselves, but do they grow as fast when the city isn't working them? The idea being : is it profitable to work cottages rather than hamlets/villages for faster overall growth?

 

[sinimusta]

I think that you should get at least 2 GS before lib. Bulbing part of the path towards it is typical. Also a golden age can be good for medieval civic switches (bureau and caste swapping for more GPs).

 

[Snowbird]

When do you usually get your 2nd GS? I tend to remain in slavery for too long, and almost never get a 2nd GS before lib when I don't have marble for GLib and quick NE (always build the NE though, but its only purpose is usually to get out GMs for upgrades).

How do you plan cottage growth? Hamlets and villages grow by themselves, but do they grow as fast when the city isn't working them? The idea being : is it profitable to work cottages rather than hamlets/villages for faster overall growth?

I would say ~3GS before Lib, sometimes more. I don't go for GM typically. Pacifism typically helps a lot, but you essentialy have to bulb philo, which uses up one GS, in a typical game bulbing philo is not a bad idea.


Not sure about second paragraph, hamlets and co do not grow without being worked. I do not see dilema with cottage vs village.. .they have same amount of food don't they?

 

[Pedro78]

Okay thanks!

Is it really worth it bulbing that much? Because if you have a small (6-8 cities) empire you will likely have trouble getting a big post-lib army quickly without a big amount of cash.
I usually switch into CS at around 400-500AD and pump out GMs, lib Military tradition in 500-700AD, build a lot of HAs in a short amount of time and attack around 750-900AD. Same thing with cannons but a bit later. Would it be more profitable to bulb my way to lib and then build a standard army? To build a big enough stack (30 cuirs or 15 cannons 15 grenadiers) by the same date I would have to lib at least 150 years earlier.

I like the idea of bulbing philo though, as being the first to philo really slows down the lib race. But then why lib early? I'm unsure.

Yeah, my bad about cottages, hamlets etc. I always thought that after hamlets everything grew by itself, must have lost soo many beakers this way lol

 

[dutchfire]

Bulbing and whipping has a decent synergy: build up high pop on food resources+farms while running specialists, then when you reach the breakout tech, whip those specialists into units.

Upgrading is usually very expensive, I prefer just whipping the units. To whip 30 cuirs in 6 cities, you need 5 per city. From the top of my head, that is 500 hammers=400 with forges, so roughly 13 population points whipped. If you have more cities, the math gets better.

 

[Pedro78]

@dutchfire : that makes sense, I will probably try to bulb more in this game if I get the opportunity

 

[Pangaea]

I usually try to trade for Philo*, and put a GS-bulb into Edu, PP and Chemistry. The first GS is normally a capital academy, but it does depend to an extent on what the capital looks like.

Mainly I use great people for bulbs and golden ages. If you can get a GM trade mission in the Artemis city, the value can be decent, especially if it's coastal with harbour (+customs house?), but usually the gold isn't that great, and I can get it with a few turns of 0% research. Seems better to spend the GM on another golden age then, if it fits with other requirements and needs.

*if Mansa is in the game and you see him get a GS, gift/trade him CoL

 

[Pedro78]

@Pangaea :

I agree that every game is different.

Last game I played on deity (the Mansa game I posted a couple of days ago), I didn't use a single bulb - 1st GS was used early for an academy in the capital. Then I got a quite late National Epic (50AD) and got 3 GMs for 5100 gold in trade missions. Still got 540AD lib and 34 cuirs by 840AD, not sure what it would have been like If I had rather bulbed my way to lib and built a standard army rather than upgrading tons of HAs. Getting into Pacifism + Caste would early probably have been more efficient though. Not sure when I got philo, but probably around 200BC (self-teched it).

Could you elaborate on why you trade for philo? I might be wrong, but from my experience whenever the AI gets philo before I do it becomes a tight lib race. If you get philo first the AI won't priorize it and there is no risk of some AI going straight for lib and getting it by 300AD. Plus waiting to trade for it is only possible if Mansa is in the game and he gets it, the other AIs who can get philo early won't trade it for a while... and a Mansa with philo is likely to steal lib right? That's why I prefer to be first to philo whenever I can. But again there might be things that I didn't take into account.

 

[Pedro78]

Another open question, about the game this time :

Spoiler :

I've played a few more turns, and looks like I'm semi-isolated with Augustus. I never played this kind of game before to be honest. This means he won't trade techs with me unless friendly right? So is the best way to beeline optics so I can trade with everybody? If it wasn't the Romans I could have HA-rushed and vassaled them, but HAs won't cut it against Prets lol

 

[Pangaea]

@Pangaea :

Could you elaborate on why you trade for philo? I might be wrong, but from my experience whenever the AI gets philo before I do it becomes a tight lib race. If you get philo first the AI won't priorize it and there is no risk of some AI going straight for lib and getting it by 300AD. Plus waiting to trade for it is only possible if Mansa is in the game and he gets it, the other AIs who can get philo early won't trade it for a while... and a Mansa with philo is likely to steal lib right? That's why I prefer to be first to philo whenever I can. But again there might be things that I didn't take into account.

As a little pre-amble, I usually play Immortal, so it's going to be a little different on Deity. However, if Mansa is in the game, there is a good chance you can get Philo off of him, and as his favourite civic is Free Market, he tends to go for Economics before Lib, even when he can do both.

To give you more time to get Lib, it's crucial - absolutely crucial - to NOT trade around Education. I prefer to hold onto Paper too, at least for a good while. Of course, on Deity AIs can tech through this pretty fast, and any trade you can get out of techs may be too hard to give up. Still, I'd caution against trading away Education.

Bulbing Philo certainly isn't bad play though, I don't want to give that impression. It gets you a religion and the AIs won't prioritise it when they can't get that religion. And by not trading it away, you have more breathing room to go deeper with Lib. I prefer to use that GS for other purposes, like bulbing Edu/PP/Chemistry, but it depends on the game; maybe you don't even need those techs, and can win the game with Cuirs.

Like practically everything else in this game, "it depends." Makes it hard to give clear advice

 

[Major Tom]

Another open question, about the game this time :

Spoiler :

I've played a few more turns, and looks like I'm semi-isolated with Augustus. I never played this kind of game before to be honest. This means he won't trade techs with me unless friendly right? So is the best way to beeline optics so I can trade with everybody? If it wasn't the Romans I could have HA-rushed and vassaled them, but HAs won't cut it against Prets lol

Well, there is always this trick:

Spoiler :

To get him to friendly when semi-isolated, gift him a (bad) city, or perhaps two.

 

[Pedro78]

@Pangaea : Thanks for the explanation. I also found that Mansa tends to priorize Economics over lib. The way you put it, trading philo from Mansa looks like a good move on Immortal. On Deity however I'm still not convinced : unless Mansa is really far ahead in tech, he will trade philo to everyone, and most of the other fast techers do priorize lib. Of course in some scenarios it might be a good idea (if the game's tech pace is really slow and you're ahead of Mansa in the lib race, or if Mansa only has 4 cities etc.).

Yeah I never trade away paper before I get Education (or someone else gets paper), and never trade away Education before I get lib. Bulbing Edu/Chemistry makes sense, but why PP? The AI tends to get PP quite fast and you can usually trade Edu for it, unless you are very far ahead in tech of course. But then what's the hurry in getting PP? Again, it probably depends on the game.

@Major Tom : thanks,

Spoiler :

Didn't think about gifting him cities, but it's a good idea. Now let's hope he gets a religion because from there I can hardly see myself being first to CoL...

 

[Pangaea]

Bulbing PP is simply because that's the next in line in the GS priority path. If I could trade for it that would be preferable, but I'm usually far ahead in tech, so that's not possible. PP itself doesn't do much, but when I can bulb into it and save a bunch of turns, I'd rather do that. And then speed ahead towards Chemistry and beyond.

But it depends on the game. I like to play longer games, so for instance Space, where such things are needed, and it speeds up the pace towards Corps/SP. In more pure war games, getting to Cuirs is a huge leap forward, and is a natural Lib target. Bulbing into stuff like PP and Chemistry is less important then, and you may well get more mileage out of GMs for upgrading units.

Naturally, if you are so far ahead you can afford to Lib Steel, then bulbing PP+Chemistry makes sense.

Civ 4 is a complex and deep game (unlike some later ones not worth mentioning), so there are very few rules of thumb that apply just about 100% of the time. You're getting wins on Deity, so you're clearly doing most things right.

 

[Lain]

@Pedro78

Spoiler :

I don't think there is an established "meta-game" in terms of Semi-Isolation. I played some of those for practice and came to the conclusion that a play for early Optics/Astro should work quite well most of the time. Not saying that other approaches can't work well, but this is what I know best and I feel that I can beat most Semi-Isolation and even Isolation games doing that.

Essentially, I would treat Semi-Isolation the same as Isolation. Differences being that you have to compete for land and might get attacked, which can make it harder, but on the other hand you can trade to some extent. Even the trade routes are kind of a big deal. So why not rush your neighbor or go for Lib?

1) You have no idea about the tech picture on the other continent. For all you know, Pacal might be hitting Lib at 300 AD. Now obviously it would be great if you could just lib Astronomy 600 AD and be in a great situation, but you can't exactly count on it. And if you have to lib Nationalism or something in the end (clearing the pre-reqs for Astro AND winning Lib in time is not exactly straightforward on Deity) it won't do you much good. Happened a couple of times that I won Lib in Semi-Isolation and then the question was: "So yeah, what now?" And there was no clear answer. Chances are your economy is rather weak since you used GS to bulb up to Lib. So now you need to launch an attack, but with what? And whom? You have no information.

2) Bulbing Optics/Astro is always available. It doesn't depend on information you don't have. Even if you are 2nd to it, it's not the end of the world. Furthermore, it yields immediate benefits. The Astro trade routes are huge, the ressource trades maybe even more important since you are most likely starved with limited variety of resources on your landmass. It also deters other AI from pursuing Astro to some extent if you are first. But most importantly, you can actually influence the Diplo situation in the game. Few turns earlier can make a difference between Toku vassalizing his 3rd victim and snowballing out of control and stopping him just in time. I have an example of this in just a moment.

3) So I would basically do the following: Aim for Monarchy/Code of Laws (via Poly, not Meditation!), run Caste System/Hereditary Rule and bulb Optics/Astro. In your situation (no marble?) I would probably skip the academy aswell. Which means you need only 3 GS for Optics + Astronomy. In an ideal world you would bulb Machinery with a 4th, but I don't see that happening. Academy is nice, but it really starts to shine in combination with Bureaucracy and in this scenario you delay Civil Service, since it would mess up your bulbing options. The Corn/Fish should probably be settled as soon as possible. Without National Epic it might be beneficial to plan for 3 GS from 3 different cities.

4) I would pretty much ignore the Romans. I mean, scout their border cities for SoDs, trade some resources. And sure, gift him a crappy city when you can. Send him resources you don't need immediately.

5) The great thing is: This approach is as resilient as you can get. I mean, you can pull this off no matter the situation. Marble, Stone or Religions are not required. Usually you will get one of those, but even if you don't, it doesn't matter.

6) Now you probably can play this more standard aswell. Academy, Civil Service, play for Lib. Not saying it wouldn't work. In fact, it might result in an even more convincing win. But you will be at the mercy of unknown civs to some extent. 300-400 AD Optics is quite a big deal. Astro should come in 500-600 AD.

7) I uploaded 3 games you might want to look at. Sloppily played, but following the described pattern. All of them resulting in (more or less) easy wins in the end. Even though that was like 5 months ago and I was quite clueless compared to today. Lots and lots of mistakes. Note that the Kublai game would have been a straight loss if I didn't stop Toku in his tracks as soon as I was able to there. Same for the Zara-Isolation one

 

[Pedro78]

@Pangaea: What you're saying makes sense. I have just never been far enough ahead in tech to consider bulbing PP (I always have considered the games where I am far ahead in tech as boring, that's why I recently moved up from Immortal do Deity, and never managed to get really far ahead in tech on normal speed Deity yet...).

@Lain : Thanks a lot for you very detailed advice ! This makes me ask several questions :

Spoiler :

First off, I gave a few minutes of thinking to the astro bulb path vs standard lib path question, and the former definitely looks like a better option.

I looked at the games you uploaded, and both seem to be in a winnable position. Were you mentioning a third game? You probably forgot to upload this one.

My first concern is about diplo/teching
I looked at your games, and you had your neighbour on friendly in both. At what date did you manage to get Mehmed/Hammy on friendly? How many/what kind of techs were you able to get from them? You were able to share religions in both, which might not be possible in my game.

Second concern is about tech path / getting my GS
In this game I don't see myself getting any marble, which will slow the GPP rate big time. Therefore, is it even worth it going Aesthetics-Litt to get the NE?
If I can get a religion, wouldn't it make sense to bulb Philo rather than Machinery so that I can get in pacifism for the next couple of scientists?

A little off topic, but I was really surprised to see such a big Toku in your game. He has been a pushover in every single game I've seen him.