Starts of doom

[ahcos]

Welcome folks,

here's one really freaking tough start i've rolled in one of my last games, and i'd really love to see someone beating this one. Personally, i really consider this one as to be unwinnable, but judge for yourself:



Warrior moved already to the only direction that made sense (from SW up that hill), trust me, SIP is really your best location here

Settings:

Deity
Continents
Huts/Events off

... anything else standard, random leader (Lincoln for yourself as you can see) and random AI and every VC.

Best of luck to the one who takes this challange, and hats off to anyone who manages to get into a winning position here. I'd really love to see one or another Deity superhero give the map a try, just for knowing wether or not i'm still just too freakin' bad at this game or if the map's really hard

Spoilers why this is hard:

Spoiler :

No room for a reasonable 2nd city, can't rush any of the possible targets, low commerce.

Edit: Savegame

View attachment ahcos BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Edzako]

Spoilers why this is impossible:

Spoiler :

No save game attached :/ :/ :/

 

[NihilZero]

1600AD conquest

Spoiler :

is obviously not achievable for the reason outlined by the previous poster.

 

[ahcos]

Ha! Edited in OP

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AP CHEESE! You only need 1 city for that .

 

[ahcos]

AP CHEESE! You only need 1 city for that .

Ok, proposal noted, and now let's play civ4 again

 

[Kid R]

To 0AD

Spoiler :

Is the absolute farthest I can usually expect to reach on deity.

But why was 1NE the only warrior move that made sense? Here is the warrior put back and tiles unrevealed.



We can see there are 3 forest tiles north, so we know the warrior's vision from the blue circle hill will be blocked all round by forests and a hill, so he will only see those 3 forests and some tile edges (pink squiggle). We will not be able to deduce anything from the tile edges which will be compelling enough to move the settler, so that warrior move is virtually wasted.

In the other hand 1SE will be able to see the two of the four blue squiggle tiles which might contain seafood we will be wasting if we SIP. If we see seafood we will have a real useful option to move to blue circle. It's not huge but a much better chance of useful intel than 1NW, IMO.

Incidentally I don't know enough (anything) about the blue circle algorithm to know whether that adds any weight at all to moving there at all. Perhaps it allocates some average evaluation score for unseen BFC tiles, where the average is higher than an ocean tile (11) So the blue circle would lose one ocean tile and is therefore better.

Anyway, I'll give it a try and see if I can make it to 0AD...

 

[ahcos]

Kid_R is right about that the warrior shouldn't have been moved. Feel free to worldbuiler that if you want to as the move 1NE didn't reveal anything (as we already knew before, but whatever). Messed up save is messed up, i'd provide the initial save but it's gone out of my idiotism

Worldbuildering the warrior won't change anything, so just do that if you want to play the map. If the information you might gain out of seeing anything in the WB will make you win i'll take my hats off regardless, even though i highly doubt that it will.

 

[Mylene]

On my 2nd try, first one i failed with...

Spoiler :

trying to oracle something funkier than Alpha and Giggles built it

So what i did so far is go the oracle for Alpha, backtrade for all the minor stuff and worker techs. Giggles pressed out Alpha some turns later, i had to give in.
Wasn't able to bribe Genghis onto someone, decided to give him Alpha as well for IW before he gets it elsewhere (Giggles).

Was lucky to turn around the oracle priest into a GS with ~25% chance, bulbed math and trying to get to Construction now. From there i might be able to get the Jumbos from Hammi, and start some fun.
Not easy with just those 3 cities, but who knows, Hammi is a soft target usually.
(If Giggles decides to hit me with this stack at pleased, iam toast )

Spoiler :

 

[ahcos]

@Mylene:

Spoiler :

Wow, in all the attempts i did Hammurabi decided to run away with the game, boxing in everyone else and ending up with ~10 cities pre 500 bc everytime. Seems you're at least alot more lucky in this regard. Oracle is indeed the only way you can do anything here, problem is that after you have the techs i realized that i can't come even close to the massive monster production any of the possible targets are able to keep up, at least not with the cities i got. Not settling in place seems mandatory, although i really hate it to lose fresh water 8[ But otherwise you can't steal the rice and end up with just one city, with this move 1N you can get at least two other spots. Will be interesting if you can do something out of here

 

[Mylene]

Doing kinda ok, under these circumstances

Spoiler :

Putting the hurt on Hammi, Babylon will be mine next turn (bribed Genghi on him too).
The top city, and my only hope to recover in the long run right now.
MoM, ToA, Pyras

Doing literature cos the city will have big food/production, and i can decide which epics to place there.
Diplo looks good, cept that most like each other cos we are all Hindu worshippers
Techs i managed to stay close thanks to Philo, but it will break in soon enough without any economy. Need to cap Hammi, i have Feud. and Genghis doesn't yet...

Spoiler :

 

[Mylene]

Here ya go, winnable position

Spoiler :

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Mylene

Spoiler :

Nice work!

So much for worrying about your neighbours sharing the same Religion... you solved that issue by aggressively taking that same Religion for yourself!

It's interesting to see that Hammurabi treats you as his Worst Enemy at Pleased Status (I'm assuming that the Worst Enemy flag will go away at the end of the turn).

I was considering taking this game and moving in-land... if you want to grab more land on Deity it helps to move away from the Coast and back-fill a Coastal City later. However, your statement of having a "winnable position" made me break down and read your spoiler. Your result is really solid, particularly with the Wonders that you scored, so I'd say that the challenge has been won and that you are the victor!

 

[Mylene]

@Dhoom

Spoiler :

Thanks!
Got lucky here, a lot of things went my way, like turning the great priest into a GS at pretty low chances (normally it goes the other way)
I wasn't sure if i should build an academy in Washingon, but the city with it's 2 scientists was my only beakers generation..that helped a bit with getting crucial techs like currency.

Babylon is a jackpot yip, it goes so well with PHI to get the Pyras and MoM.
If Hammi would have been more dominant like in Ahcos' game, this is hard to pull off probably.
Even with Genghis on his butt, he had a lot of troops (bad use of them thou, nothing Catas couldn't fix)

Lucky Lucky Lucky, but i'll take it

P.S. in my games the worst enemy flag always stays till next turn when the changes are taken into account, i stopped right after capping him and gifting him 2 cities back, no fine tuning for the next turn yet.

 

[ahcos]

@Mylene:

Spoiler :

Good job Moving the cap 1N really is crucial here as it seems, in all my attempts i stayed @ the fresh water and it never crossed my mind to move the cap, that ruled out the 2nd and 3rd city you got and so on. Did you move there on the first try aswell or were you settling in place back then?

 

[Mylene]

Yip i thought it was better to move on the first try too, looking at the shoreline SIP looked like it might rule out a water city to the South.
No need to spoiler this i think, if you SIP the game is lost day 1

 

[ahcos]

Yeah, pretty much lost if you SIP. That's one thing i totally lack atm, being creative about makinguncommon moves when you need to in order to have a chance. We had the same thing with Gwajas raging barbs map where you just settled in Montys land - a glorious move, really x)