Sury demigod shadow

[jnebbe]

Howdy

It's getting really boring winning 99% of immortal games even on weird settings and I'm feeling inspired to try to win on demigod. My current game is a demigod Huayna that went basically perfectly for me, and I'm still confused what I'm supposed to do to close it out once everyone gets rifles/infantry . This is from an old NC thread, I picked a game with one of my favorite leaders with a nice-looking start. I didn't read any of the original thread so I have no map knowledge or anything like that. Figured it is better to make a new thread instead of necroing a 4 year-old thread.

Anyways, start looks pretty straightforward, move scout to the spice, and if we don't find anything crazy then settle on PH and agri->BW?

 

[Izuul]

River grass cow might justify AH > BW. Farming FPs is sloooooow.

Timing might be a little weird though. I'd have to think about it a little more.

 

[pmarc]

If the scout uncovers nothing interesting and you're considering settling 1S for PH, you can get a free scouting move on cow from the settler instead of going straight to the hill.

PH settle gets worker out in 10 turns with EXP. By that time you can't even finish AH... I think it's 13 turns to research on deity. You can put 1 turn of work on the mine NE while waiting, but not much more. Thinking of a few options:

- With AH first you have a lot of hammers naturally from the cow, plains hill city center and a grass mine, maybe you don't need BW next. Instead, after AH you can research The Wheel, Agri (if you see any grains scouting around) and eventually Pottery so the worker has something to do.

- Other option is maybe BW first, in this case you're making a grass mine then start chopping to speed up a settler.

I think AH first is better, but let's see the map when you settle capital (or after scouting moves) first. You know you can wait until T5 to select first tech with no penalty.

 

[Izuul]

I think you can get AH 1 or 2 turns faster if you work a commerce tile. You have to (at least partially) forgo the EXP worker bonus, but it might be worth it. I think getting the cow 1T faster is more valuable than anything else the worker is going to be able to do here.

Thats assuming there isnt something else in the BFC to do though. Definitely need to see what it looks like after settling.

 

[Gumbolt]

2F grassland likely a resource? If horse AH makes more sense. Ag-BW seems a long time in terms of research.

Settling on river will be nice for trade routes.

 

[jnebbe]

T0-T5

Spoiler :

T2 Qin

Agri+worker can both finish in 6 turns, then 7 turns to farm FP
AH is still 10t away while working a FP, worker pre-mines for 1t I guess, pasture takes 4t
After 15t agri will only be ahead by 2 food and AH starts gaining 2 hammer per turn+possibility of horses, until t20 or so when agri can have 2 farmed FP with bw close to being done
But AH is so expensive, do you really just skip bw and go wheel->pottery next? I suppose if 1st settler is slow it doesn't matter TOO much bc cheap workers and half price granary

 

[Fippy]

Looks like a nice pottery first start tbh..
you are a bit ahead with an 11t worker already, so a size 2 settler with one farmed fp + ph mine wouldn't be all that slow.
Then a quick 12h/turn granary and your capital can grow to size 5 fast and start using some cottages before more expansion.

 

[jnebbe]

T5-T23

Spoiler :

I would never tech AH first before BW for just a cow, but in the name of learning I will be doing exactly that and then pottery.
Napoleon, Genghis, Qin, could be a bloody game

Exploring to the west reveals a nice wet rice+ivory spot.

AH finishes and horses are revealed towards Qin. Worker finished 2 turns before AH so he mined the PH for 1 turn while waiting.

I lowkey forgot I need agri before pottery. Worker has a few turns to road to my next city spot so I have to decide now. Red square is where I would normally go, horses for barb defense or HAs, good cottage land. Yellow square would be way riskier but would let you backfill a lot of good land. Pink square would be great for production but not help commerce at all.
I think red spot is best and then grab pink spot as 2nd city

Lots of ways for this game to go from here

 

[pmarc]

Without consideration of competition, I would probably choose rice/ivory first. You can pre-road to the city and all the resources, and that production city will become your worker/settler farm while the capital works its cottages. Next cities can be along the river for commerce and don't need roads to be connected in that case.

That said, you might lose the horse to Qin. I wouldn't be overly concerned about it personally. The close AIs mean less barb problems, so we may not need chariots even in the absence of metal. Elepult is more reliable as a breakout strategy than HAs at that level.

 

[Plains-Cow]

T5-T23

Spoiler :

View attachment 751964
I would never tech AH first before BW for just a cow, but in the name of learning I will be doing exactly that and then pottery.
Napoleon, Genghis, Qin, could be a bloody game

Exploring to the west reveals a nice wet rice+ivory spot.




View attachment 751965
AH finishes and horses are revealed towards Qin. Worker finished 2 turns before AH so he mined the PH for 1 turn while waiting.




View attachment 751966
I lowkey forgot I need agri before pottery. Worker has a few turns to road to my next city spot so I have to decide now. Red square is where I would normally go, horses for barb defense or HAs, good cottage land. Yellow square would be way riskier but would let you backfill a lot of good land. Pink square would be great for production but not help commerce at all.
I think red spot is best and then grab pink spot as 2nd city

Lots of ways for this game to go from here

High-production cities get a bad wrap too much imo. Yes, settle for food/resources first, but once you can build wealth, you can put them to work doing that and/or switch to build wonders or military quickly when you need to. I also like that plains-hill site as a possible later city one left of your "nap" meeting label. Would be good for defense if attacked and might have rice/gems/sugar in the jungle.

 

[jnebbe]

t23-t50

Spoiler :

2nd city founded T32. Worker roaded NE of capital while waiting and still made it back to farm the rice immediately.
2nd worker in capital, don't think it's really worth to grow just to work FPs and with no granary

Lost scout at 70% :/ waited until I saw some other units also roaming the area, i suppose I could've just moved 1 tile at a time until I know it's safe to go into the forest hill

I remember that barbs can enter borders earlier than normal if it's to pillage an improvement. That archer pillaged my farm, but my warrior won his fight, and I worked the plains mine to get another warrior out just in case.
I think I lost the south-east warrior though. Was getting antsy because I wasn't seeing any other units in that area, but I really wanted to get on that PH

What should I build in the capital here? Already spending 1gpt on warriors, barracks seems kind of pointless, may as well wait for more cottages before growing to size 5

BW finishes, and what a beautiful copper tile that is. Hariharalaya will be a production powerhouse!
Both workers are chopping the settler, which will be out T53. Settle 1N of the corn? Then maybe a 4th city 1W of the nap tile marker. Should be enough till elepult.
Tech masonry next? Could get a little bit of ToA failgold and needed for elepult.

 

[pmarc]

Masonry is not urgent, Writing should be next. For city 4 I would put it 1W of Nap marker (for the PH and more cottage sharing with capital). There are two competing priorities here I would think, settle cities 3/4 and maximize the # of cottages being worked. Maybe the two workers should mine the copper after chopping, one stays around to chop the next settler and the other along with new capital worker work on cottaging. By the way, after those chops you're doing now, make sure to save the other chops in range of the capital for the capital, e.g. to get Granary and Library up faster. Hari has enough production.

I guess I would see Hari work rice/cow/copper while capital and city 3 initially only work cottages. I would prioritize cottaging up to your current population over even improving the corn in city 3, but I agree with getting the corn spot first to not lose it to Hatty.

 

[Plains-Cow]

t23-t50

Spoiler :

View attachment 752087
2nd city founded T32. Worker roaded NE of capital while waiting and still made it back to farm the rice immediately.
2nd worker in capital, don't think it's really worth to grow just to work FPs and with no granary


View attachment 752088
Lost scout at 70% :/ waited until I saw some other units also roaming the area, i suppose I could've just moved 1 tile at a time until I know it's safe to go into the forest hill



View attachment 752089
I remember that barbs can enter borders earlier than normal if it's to pillage an improvement. That archer pillaged my farm, but my warrior won his fight, and I worked the plains mine to get another warrior out just in case.
I think I lost the south-east warrior though. Was getting antsy because I wasn't seeing any other units in that area, but I really wanted to get on that PH



View attachment 752095
What should I build in the capital here? Already spending 1gpt on warriors, barracks seems kind of pointless, may as well wait for more cottages before growing to size 5




View attachment 752097
BW finishes, and what a beautiful copper tile that is. Hariharalaya will be a production powerhouse!
Both workers are chopping the settler, which will be out T53. Settle 1N of the corn? Then maybe a 4th city 1W of the nap tile marker. Should be enough till elepult.
Tech masonry next? Could get a little bit of ToA failgold and needed for elepult.

Never can have too many workers if not whipping or growing the capital. I'd grow the capital onto cottages only to the happy cap and build workers until Writing is done. I'd take that over Masonry. Finish chopping settlers and settle 1N of corn first before sending the next 1W of "nap" marker. I'd think about getting a cottage up on the river before the corn in the corn city. While the corn city is taken care of, I'd send one worker to cottage the floodplains north of where you will settle the "nap" city (if you're going to do that, of course). It can share with the capital if needed while you build more. always focus developing cottages before currency because it's too easy to crash your economy with fast Immortal/Demigod expansion lol. Just try to manage your worker turns carefully so that cities are working as many cottages as possible and getting them built as cities grow.

 

[jnebbe]

t50-71

Spoiler :

Genghis started plotting... Hatty is hated by everyone so hopefully her?

I put a turn into an axe+spear in Hari incase I need to whip something.

lol

Settler finishes. Hari had another worker chopped out. Img shows it was slow building a barracks but I switched to a library this turn.

Not much else happened. Converted to Hindu bc capital could use the happiness, but atm it's working 2 scientists since there's no cottages to work.
Granary in all cities next turn.
I've been putting my 0% beakers into masonry, probably have enough for both masonry+math at 100% by now.
What should I build in Hari? Was thinking settler maybe for a 5th city on the north marble, or I could gift a city to genghis? Technically I don't know that he's not plotting on me yet and I might need to gift a city to make peace if he attacks. Barracks would be needed for elepult; I'm scouting Genghis and he has pretty good land, but maybe I should just dogpile Hatty when the inevitable world war breaks out.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Not a big fan of a city for Genghis. He is already plotting, and the best way to get out of a war is to hide in a city and let him throw away his units. Hari will have 40% defences soon.

You may want a barracks, and now might be a good moment. That said, IMHO Elepult is a few (2-4) Elephants, catapults and whatever to kill weakened units. Elephants are expensive. The whatever does not really need promotions to kill weakened defenders. Thus Hari could start building axes and spears (without barracks), maybe even whip one and store the hammers. OTOH Hari is your best military (food-hammers) city, so it would be nice if it could produce cats and phants in which case you want barracks.

You have 4 workers right now? One more would not hurt, as you need more improvements. Additionally the war will require roads.

 

[Izuul]

Build some units and try to find his stack. It's too early to beg anything so getting him to pleased is unlikely to help. Hopefully he's plotting on someone else, but I think you can fend him off here.

I think 4 cities is enough if you are going for a Construction attack.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I wouldn't give a city to Genghis. Defending pre-Construction isn't that bad if you have cultural defenses. Defensive troll wars against the AI, although it can slow you down a little, is still a way to build up an army in a city to launch in their face after their main attack stack fails. You can even get walls once you get Masonry and basically make it impenetrable if you really need to. I feel like your war target would be best decided by the outcome of the Genghis x whoever war. If the Khan has good land, you can overrun him while he's tied up and then crush his would-be victim. You already have a religious bloc to the east, so your "side" seems to already be picked. Hatty sucks at war, so she wouldn't be much of a problem to kill second. As far as another city goes, you're looking pretty squeezed. I like on the north marble for working that floodplains and grassland. It's going to be a hungrier city, but it's not terrible, and it also gets you more trees to chop for elepults. I hate going 1 off the coast, but short-term gains are more important and on the marble allows you to work better tiles for your Construction attack.

 

[jnebbe]

t71-t105

Spoiler :

canceled deals with hatty since nobody likes her

Genghis finally declares on me, he throws a few units at my city, then he just camped on that hill for several turns. I really wanted to get a road 1NW of Hari to get onto that hill in 1 turn, which could also let me attack Ning in 1 turn. He absolutely would not move from the hill so I kept sending units along the forests to try to force him to attack me.

Put 1t at 50% on alphabet to get this trade

Once Ning was down to 0% I attacked, was on a knife's edge tbh, I think he probably had 10-12 units in the city the turn I attacked

Ceasefired to heal my units. Genghis is far from longbows but he does have his own elephants.
Lost a worker on accident bc I moved the wrong one so capital whipped another.
Hari whipped 2 unimproved tiles to get a combat 2 elephant.
Traded corn to hatty for gems so my cities can grow a bit more.
Annoyingly Genghis went hindu so that's a big -1 with almost everyone.
Got a scientist a while ago that's just sitting in the capital.
I settled my 1st great general in Hari. I'd normally make a super medic but I figured Hari is producing so fast that settling should be good value.

How much do ai value them being bribed? I can bribe genghis onto someone else to absorb some of his stack, but he won't do it for MC+Alphabet

killed 1470 and only lost 245 of my own lol

 

[Fippy]

No reason to be afraid of Genghis
Cancelling deals with Hatty earlier prolly doesn't matter (she likes you anyhoo), but in general i never do that.

This game will get complicated..too much Hindu love around.
Bribing is very expensive if your target isn't at war already.
How good are his remaining cities? Not impossible to tech ahead with your strong river cities core.
I guess you could grow them fairly large with Monarchy (using your plenty units as city guards).

 

[Izuul]

Pillage those cottages around Ning before it comes out of revolt. The plains ones at the very least. I'd keep the grass hamlet, but I'm sure about the other two grass cottages.- might depend on whether you intend to keep warring or play peaceful.