The Flying Dutchmen - Deity Adventures

[uberfish]

I picked the Dutch for this game because I wanted to play with the Dikes, the Dutch UB that gives all water tiles +1 hammer. Unlike the Levee it replaces, a dike can be built in a city that isn't directly on a river which gives additional flexibility in city placement. Dutch coast tiles with Dikes and Financial give 2f1h3c which is a very respectable output, so if the Dutch have access to enough coast they are able to stay competitive in the later game with less land than normal. With military expansion being difficult in BTS Deity this late-game ability deserves some serious consideration.

Willem (the only choice for Dutch leader) has the nice trait combo of Creative/Financial which makes him one of the best leaders at early peaceful expansion without going broke.

Settings: normal speed, deity, fractal, 7 civs

The starting capital location is nice and settling it popped a hut for 38 gold:



I'd like to invite players (all skill levels welcome) to take the initial save, play it out till about 1500 BC and compare approaches to the opening, as I think we can all learn a lot this way.

 

[futurehermit]

Hey Uber,

Looking forward to this. If I have time, I will grab the save and play along as the Dutch are one of my fav leaders.

 

[tycoonist]

coincidently, i played a game where i called myself the flying dutchman a couple of games ago.

on a more useful note, creative and financial is a very fun combination. i remember the fun i had with a vanilla Catherine and cossacks. those were the days... When i play as the dutch, i end up going to space, financial is very well suited for this and there UB adds production to coastal and riverside cities, giving some decent spaceship production. mix the dike with the moai statues and you have an impressive production city even if it is just a 1x1 island.

the start is good, coastal benefits from both the UB and financial traits. the river will give added commerce and it is food rich, making a nice hybrid city running a combination of scientists and cottages. with all that forest and 3 plains hills, it should be decent production as well.

i would love to play but i am still a long way off deity compatible, immortal is beyond my current BTS abilities. but good luck!

 

[lilnev]

I'll give it a shot. I haven't actually won on Deity yet, but I've come closer since BtS than I ever did on Warlords....

Nice start position. Tons of food, and that seafood will all be 3 commerce. Mining-BW seems like the obvious choice, with a series of workboats. Then get chopping and REX for land. Creative/Financial is a very strong combination, imho.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Gocho]

Wilem is my favorite leader so I'll be giving this a shot even though it's a step up from my normal difficulty, expect a fantastic defeat from my update.

 

[Giaur]

I'll give a shot too. I achieved with Willy my first Immortal BtS win and Dikes are great. Cre/Fin is also great. Definitely try this one - looks like some open game to me

 

[Gocho]

Quick report 1 AD

Screen shots disappeared

Spoiler :

Barbs were out of hand at the start for me, I had 3 barb archers wandering about my capitol at 3500BC, slowed me down a lot!

Went Mining/BW, no copper, grabbed animal handling hoping for horses and found some a bit to far SE of the capitol, with barbs doing a number on me I had to settle it quickly with a bit more overlap then I like.

Found all the action was to our south and the northern lands aren't all that great, rushed down with a settler for the horses to trade and some happiness resourses, beat Napoleon by 1 turn to the spot being forced to settle 1 north of where I should have. Founded the other 2 coastal cities at the top of our world and then met all the AI's, I'm mighty backwards and don't have a religion as they seem unwilling to spread anything to me. Just before I stopped at 1AD the entire world broke out in war, I had 5 different leaders ask me to start a war with them, ended up picking the Confucian block of Gig and Ramses as Napoleon has to my first target.

Just starting to pump out military now, the real war will start in 100 years or so, going to be a very tough win for me.

 

[nullspace]

I gave it a shot. Immortal is challenging for me, but I really have little idea how to compete on deity.

I played up to 1440 BC. Here's how it went:

Spoiler :

I have two cities claiming land in the south, two workers, three fishing improvements, and a few warriors. I have horses hooked up and a barracks in that city. I had some barbarian problems at my capital, and they pillaged the pig ranch and the mine. I have bronze working, animal husbandry, pottery, and half of alphabet, but that will take a while to finish.

I tried to copy the strategy of expanding far and fast to claim land, but it seems like all I got from that were two weak cities and a poor tech rate. I'm blocking the peninsula now, and there are two barbarian cities to capture in the south, so if I can avoid war, maybe things could work out.

 

[uberfish]

Great, 18 downloads already - we ought to get some good discussion here.

How this will work is anyone can pick up a save at any point and play some turns, and compare the results with other players. So it doesn't really matter if you don't normally play at such a high difficulty level. By playing a session and comparing with what other players did you will probably get insights that you can apply to your normal game.

After giving it a couple of days I'll post my next report and save, and people are free to either use mine or continue from their own save.

Good luck!

 

[ungy]

add me to the pool but I'm no deity. We have IMHO a very strong leader tho.

 

[futurehermit]

A difficulty could be no military UU...

 

[Mard]

I had an small go at the map. Currently at 1680 with one city which has founded 3 religions and got great wall and oracle. Going to start outward expansion now.

 

[Belisar]

Just a little analysis, had no time to play it out

Spoiler :

The start looks good, with all those seafood it's nice to have fishing already.
I see one problem: the tech that would give you the most at this moment is BW (chop/whip would be a superb source of production with all those forests and the excess food, you also get mining in the process which you need anyway)
Additional you would get to axes, and there is exactly the problem, if there is no copper, you are stuck, with deity barbs around this would be a do or die strategy (IW on immortal/deity is usually too late)
On the other side you haven't hunting, so archery takes time also and will absorb a lot of beakers, while you cann't chop, cann't whip.
Going AH for horses first is another gamble. You don't need it in the first place since the seafood is far superior compared to the pigs early on because of the additional commerce and because it won't be pillaged AND horses seem to be less likely in BTS (at least for me)
So the save variant could very well be too slow in terms of expansion and the risk-variant beelining to BW or even IW if necessary would relay on some luck, but from my experience early deity is a bit of gamble anyway.

 

[Giaur]

Spoiler :

Completely played with no better idea what to do with stone and what to do with these forests. It's too late to build Pyramids. The second city was close to be razed by barbs. No wonders. Now I'am working on horseback riding to raze barb city. Happiness is a problem. I screwed it.

 

[Snaaty]

@ uberfish:

I only have warlords on the laptop I have with me, but I might give this game a shot once I return, but it will be another week or so...

 

[Ruler]

Because I don't feel like to play BtS currently I thought to give this a try. This is my first Deity game ever in BtS. I've tried it couple times in Warlrods.

Spoiler :

Tech-path. Mining -> BW -> Iron-> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing.

Build-order in Capital. Awesome Capital maybe a reason why I started to play this in first place.
3x Warrior fogbusting.
2x Workboat.
1x Warrior. fogbusting.
1x Worker
2x Settler. Chopped.
2x Worker. Chopped.
1x Granary. Whipped 1 pop.
Started Lib for scientist.

Utrecth. Plently of seafood, 2 scientist, whipping, trade routes. No doubt it's going to work.
2x Workboat.

The Hague. Just to make sure I get all those happiness resources.
Started Barracks to pump out some axemens.



I think my game is pretty good example what good fogbusting can do. I met only one barb and a few animals. I'm pretty happy that barb-phase is done and only with warriors but the other side of the coin is coming as I'm very low on powergraph AI may attack. Especially Shaka.

I'm trying to post a screenshot of my empire but I dont know last time it didn't work out. I know we spoke about 1440 BC. But I wanted to find my third city.

 

[darrelljs]

Drat...I just saw this. What's the deadline?

Darrell

 

[uberfish]

No deadline. I'll probably update Wednesday or so but feel free to pick up and play anytime.

 

[ungy]

OK--played to 1640

 

[ungy]

Spoiler :

Build WB-war work-war-war?-work-set. Some barb trouble but OK. Tech AH-min-BW-WH-POT-WRIT. As of 1640 I have just completed lib in capital, Utrecht by the horse/clams. However boxed in by barbs to the S and to the north barbs have corn/cow city 1N of where it should be. Not sure how to proceed from here. Maybe build chariots to take barb city to S.