Started another Deity game. Anybody want to play along or give advice?

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

You are about as safe as you can get to declare on Hammy. That's not quite true about AI needing to be pleased to be bribed though. The threshold for that varies by leader as does their attitude threshold towards the potential target. You can see them all in the post I linked above.

 

[nate46]

played a little bit more, to 1300bc:

Spoiler :

War is going pretty well. Took two babylonian cities so far. Lost one catapult to a 50% roll and one axeman to a very sneaky chariot. I also had one less axeman than i planned somehow, not sure what i miscounted... whipped a spearman in sippar, and i'm about to chop/whip two catapults in sippar, so the army is still going strong.

planning this out... I think i'm going to branch my army, sending about 5 units (2 cats, 1 spear, 2 axe) from sippar towards the small undiscovered city built on top of a plains iron south of Sippar. The main force (currently in Nippur) will march on Babylon.

Somebody poisoned the water supply in coventry, so i traded stone and copper for 3 health resources from sury. (i don't need the copper now since i found out one of my mines has iron under it) I chopped a granary in london, and i'm working on a library there too while growing it out size 7 and then i'll run scientists to get my first academy. You'll all be happy to know that i've decided to build my first farm near london to make it grow faster ... i might even build other farms after i'm done.... Once I get currency I will start teching towards bureaucracy.

There are are still several forests left over in the babylonian cities to chop units, so hopefully i won't have to waste whips in my home cities any further in the war effort. Although i'm still building units there for now for barb defense and garrison happiness, will probably switch to building gold/tech there soon, except hastings which is still working the gold so i might as well build a granary there for when i eventually want to grow it out. (the gold will switch back to the cap after i get an academy there.)

After hammurabi is defeated, there aren't any obvious targets so i think i'm going to go full tech mode and try to get liberalism.

 

[nate46]

this diplomacy stuff is complicated lol. Thanks for the links by the way, i guess i need to do some studying...

 

[georgjorge]

@nate46:

Spoiler :

Great job on the war, and on not crashing your economy with it! Seems you have good experience with Axapult wars.

Whether to continue warring or to make peace for a longer time is a difficult decision. You give up quite a bit of development for inititally making your army, so continuing to use it can be beneficial. If Viccy didn't start with Fishing I would have advised to go for a Machinery/Engineering bulb, but as it is it would probably be a bit late to reach Engineering in relation to Liberalism.

I haven't played Huge maps, but what I read from Seraiel's playthroughs diplomacy is even more important there. You have so many AIs which you can trade techs with and bribe into wars. You also should have explored the map a lot more by that point to meet AIs and have more opportunities for tech trades.

 

[DrCron]

BUG mod doesn't let you do things you couldn't do otherwise (it is literally "BTS unaltered gameplay") but it makes information clearer and faster to get. On Deity this makes the game WAY faster. 2 easy examples:

1) If you want to know if someone is plotting to go to war, you have to open diplomacy screen with each leader and see if you can bribe them to go to war. If you can't because they say "we have enough on our hands" but they are not in a war right now, it means they are plotting. This info on Immortal/Deity is extremely useful, but it takes a long time to get it. BUG mod just shows you a fist next to the leader's name when they are plotting, making the info faster to get.

2) If you want to know how many cities the enemies have (to check who's stronger and who's weaker, again, very important info) you need to open the diplomacy screen with each one of them, count the cities you can ask them for, add 1 for the capitol, and that's the total number of cities they have. It takes a lot of time, and you need to keep doing it throughout the game, which is a pain. BUG mod just gives you that number next to the CIV's name in the scoreboard.

BUG also let's you go from 0% to 100% in the sliders with one click (saves lots of time as well), gives you the info about the next great person in the main screen very clearly, improves the list of wonders so you can order them by CIV (which can help you decide who you want to attack), and lots of other small changes in how the info is displayed to make it better.

Because of this, pretty much every single Deity player in Civ IV uses BUG. It'll take you forever to get the info you need to handle the diplomacy correctly without it.

 

[nate46]

Fine you all win i installed bug!!!!

Didn't play much today, still taking this slow.

What should I do here? decision time... (1260 bc)

Spoiler :

In my previous deity game, i ended up losing because i declared on Ragnar in a similar situation and he came for me after making peace with everybody else. Currently only gilgamesh and Biss at war with him i think... Bis is at cautious still and gilgamesh is at pleased but if declare here he'd be at friendly i think. (at +8 total currently)...

 

[DrCron]

Fine you all win i installed bug!!!!

Didn't play much today, still taking this slow.

What should I do here? decision time... (1260 bc)

I'm glad you installed it! I hope you like the extra info. Regarding your question:

Spoiler :

What I would ask myself in a situation like that is "why is it so important to be Friendly with Gilgamesh?" If you can't come up with a very good answer I'd say don't go to war. Let them fight each other and slow each other down while you improve your empire. I usually never fight on 1260 BC unless I have a very good reason for an early rush (eg I'm boxed in with 3 cities or something like that) I usually play standard speed, but I don't think that reasoning changes much on Marathon. So my guess is I wouldn't go to war there. With the full save file we can probably tell more.

*NOTE: I only have a few victories on Deity right now, so maybe others have better advice.

 

[Fippy]

I think you should, Monty seems weak with only 6 cities and his units are usually only old cannon fodder if some find their way towards you
He's just hopeless with Diplo too as Hindu.

 

[nate46]

to 1110 bc:

Spoiler :

Just got currency and then suryavarman randomly declares war on me despite being +8 pleased. I guess hammurabi bribed him? The bastard had just begged construction off of me like 15 turns ago... If he has elephants now i'm in trouble...

Caesar will declare on surry if i give him currency.... so i ought to go ahead and do that...

Problem -- I don't even know where sury is. LOL i need to explore more. Hopefully he's behind caesar. That would be convenient... or maybe he has some huge stack on the way coming from the other direction...

Hammy has one more city i want--borsippa with rice and gems... After that i think i ought to make peace for techs and gold... was planning to eliminate him but i think i'll need what's left of my army for defense...

 

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

Did you check the diplo relations screen for -1 close borders between Sury and another AI? That could potentially tell you who he's next to.

Edit: That looks like Chinese culture east of Rome/Antium and Monty to the north of Rome/Antium. Sury is probably somewhere else.

Either way, you definitely want to bribe Rome in on Sury with Currency. That's cheap and if Sury is somewhere to the east Rome will be a great buffer for you.

 

[georgjorge]

Yes, exploration definitely needs to be improved. Not only to know where the other AIs are, but you haven't even uncovered the land west of Coventry - there might be double wet Corn + double Gold there for all you know! How many AIs have you met yet? How is the tech trade situation?

Spoiler :

12 cities is probably ok on a Huge map. You have done very well with the war, and made nice progress! Seems to be a strong point for you. You might want to grab two or three more spots to the west if you can afford it.

At this point you could stop producing units (if you really stop at Borsippa) and get the economy going if it weren't for the Sury war. Declaration at +8 is harsh, he probably turns Friendly (and thus unable to declare) at +9 or +10.

I see you are still not producing any Great People - but you really should at this point, early war or not. With the amount of cottages and Gold you have an early Academy is very important (you will be able to up the slider at Courthouses).

 

[nate46]

@george

Spoiler :

The plan was to start building a great scientist for an academy in london, but i was waiting for it to hit happy cap first since i want to work as many cottages as possible before running specialists there. After that --akkad has sheep and deer so it will be creating a great scientist too. I'll probably save that great scientist to bulb education...

I really should have explored more. i think i min-maxed this game too much. I really had no units that were available for exploration, everything was absolutely needed either for city defense or for the rush army. I guess i should have built some extra units purely for exploration. I'm exploring now with some left over military units so the map should be brighter soon. The northwest seems to be mostly jungle (although maybe a gem city that i can build). There's also a barb city there with wet corn, i should probably take it before giggles does. . I'm 99% sure sury is somewhere to the far east (its a huge map) and i'm on the west coast of the pangaea. I don't *think* he can get to me except through rome, and he doesn't have open borders with sitting bull who is north of rome. Monte is north of giggles.

Meanwhile, rome is now at war with china too. its a big jewish civil war (Jews should help eachother not fight eachother! although admittedly, i started it by attacking hammi...). I think Sury is east of china.

I can't remember how many AI's i put in this game. I think i've met them all though.

I might not have too much time to play for the next couple of days so this game is going to start getting even slower than it already is.

 

[Izuul]

Spoiler :

I'm 95% sure that's 2 tiles of Chinese culture SE of Antium if you haven't met them yet. Old SGOTM culture spying days coming back to me.

 

[georgjorge]

@nate46:

Spoiler :

Sury behind Rome would be great news.

Second Great Scientist for Education? That's a long way off. Philo is usually my first bulb if I aim for Liberalism as the bulb replaces itself fairly fast and it's hard to trade for. If not going for Lib (i.e. teching the lower part of the tree) and you start with Fishing it's harder to find good uses. I can't say anything about the food situation of your cities from your screenshots, but with more than 10 cities surely there are at least two or three that could have built a Library and ran two Scientists before London will reach happy cap?

 

[nate46]

Played more, to 480bc:

Spoiler :

Ok. So i was fortunate that Sury could never get to me with his stack, he's still fighting caesar. after taking a couple more babylonian cities plus that wet corn barb city i was talking about, I've been peacefully teching for the most part. I seem to be in the bottom left corner of the map and pretty well surrounded by co-religionists (caesar and gilgamesh) which is nice.

I took most of hammurabi's cities then he converted to confuscianism (which i founded somehow...) so he hates me now.

Got Bureaucracy and an academy in my cap finally (slowest first great person ever). Building a few other libraries and working towards philosophy.... there's no way i can bulb philosophy in time so i'm just going to self tech it. Maybe i can trade it for feudalism and machinery...

Does anyone know why burgerking declares on me next turn? (he declares the turn after the save i provided. sometimes hammurabi does too. ) I did tell him to screw off a few turns ago when he demanded a bunch of gold, but i thought that his war with the monte (how is this guy still alive????) would prevent him from plotting... Although i don't think he can get to me, if i bribe caesar to close his borders...

I seriously need to explore more. i have a bad habit of just clicking end turn and not bothering

I think this game is going pretty well -- although its not a pure game -- i usually play without reloading (except for the occasional misclick) but this game i've been using reloads a lot just to try to figure out how deity works....

But the plan is to try to liberalism steel and then wreck everyone...

 

[georgjorge]

@nate:

Spoiler :

I will open the save later to have a detailed look.

For now, well done on expanding and infrastructure!

Libbing Steel after an early war is an ambitious goal. It is doable BUT in order to make it you will need a good number of Great Scientists to bulb the right things AND very clever tech trading - you won't make it only with "basic" research. Good techs to bulb for this are Education, Liberalism itself and Chemistry. For this to work, you need to know exactly under which circumstances you can bulb what. For instance, if you trade for Machinery early you will NOT be able to bulb Liberalism (so you would have to first bulb Liberalism to almost-completion, then get Machinery in order to bulb Chemistry ). Personally I would be content with Liberalism for Chemistry and self-research Steel unless the AIs are very slow in teching.

 

[nate46]

@georgjorg

Spoiler :

Is it really that hard to lib steel? I mean, at this rate i ought to get it in around 100 turns. Thats like, 510ad-ish. I mean just cause you axapult somebody doesn't mean your tech is slow, hahah especially with financial leaders. Cities are still developing, so i'll probably be at around 400 beakers per turn relatively quickly... assuming burgerking doesn't find me and kill me first...

I'm pretty sure its impossible to bulb chemistry without teching either printing press or guilds. ... i'm not gonna have that many great people, anyway... i think 1 bulb into education, 1 for a golden age, and the third GS should come pretty quickly after i already have steel... i'll probably just go ahead and bulb printing press (would be nice with the amount of cottages i'm running.)

 

[Izuul]

That's where i really can't comment on a marathon game as i have very little experience playing at that speed (I've never even completed a whole game). Warfare is so much more efficient, and workers are also more efficient since they spend a much smaller % of their turns on movement. Much earlier dates are possible.

Bulbing Chemistry definitely doesn't work though.

 

[nate46]

@izuul

Spoiler :

Yeah... marathon does seem to have faster times. Workers are also effectively cheaper, not just faster. Although theoretically the AIs should be faster too... In one alternate timeline for this game, i declared on china at around 1000 bc, but he already had chu ko nus... (lol, time to reload!!)... i've never seen them that early...

I wonder if lib is even worth going for on marathon deity, rather than just endless warfare in the ancient era. If i reach it before somebody kills me, I'm going to win, but if a stack hits my doorstep, i'm in trouble. Diplomacy is also 3 times as fast. Seems like a gamble. I bet in some alternate timeline for this game, somebody bribes caesar to kill me and then i'm dead.

On immortal what i usually do is just war constantly and ignore diplomacy, and my power rating is so high that nobody ever really declares on me, or even if they do i just kill them next. on deity this doesn't work... can't get my power rating high enough, and there aren't as many soft targets.

In retrospect i should have worked harder to get caesar and gilgamesh to friendly sooner, even so far as to sending them units to help them fight their wars. If your units fight in their territory, the shared war bonus increases quicker, right? i vaguely remember that mechanic, but i could be remembering wrong... But yeah, being surrounded by friendly neighbors seems like the only way to win. But then they also have to be willing to close borders with anyone who'd declare on you...

 

[civfanchambers]

@nate46- I'm curious as how much you're enjoying bug mod?