The ultimate challenge deity part II, Liz

[Dirk1302]

This is the second installment of deity challenges, it's an open game, the idea is to play the game reporting progress between spoiler tags. Please assign a date to the spoilers so others can see if they can open the spoilers.

I decided to go with Liz this time, i'm curious if she's as strong on deity as on the other levels.

This is the first start i drew,

I wonder if the generator has become a bit unbalanced with 3.17, playing this one with Liz is hardly ultimate as far as challenges go.

So i rolled again,

This one looks rather bad but with mining we can at least use the silver fast.
Settling in place isn't as obvious as in the previous challenge, maybe move the settler 1sw dependent on warrior scouting. But it risks losing a resource in the north, also coastal squares are a bit better being financial. GLH could be good here but we'd need some room to expand. Going for it'll be a big gamble on deity anyway.

Tech wise Hunting(to give an option to divert to archery) AH, BW seems reasonable.

Enjoy.

Edit: The start above turns out to be difficult so we go with a third start (= the second save DirkII-BC-4000-2).

And.... i rolled a beautiful one, very good start but not totally excessive so we go with this one (for the moment that is).

The gems are nice of course but the rice is not irrigated so we're not very food rich. I think i'll start with AG, BW.

And another Edit: While the last gems start looks good, only play it if you feel the urge to get humbled or feel very very lucky. Another re-roll might be necessary but if you'd like to play, better try the first one, it's not easy but imo not as bad as has been suggested.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

I liked the 1st one more

 

[Dirk1302]

, would have been fun to play indeed and who knows we might have been completely boxed in. It would probably have made for a good OCC start.

If we're smashed on this one i can always post that one as i kept it.

 

[oyzar]

double crabs double silver, double fur and corn? lol.. no idea how far you would want to run with the second one but settling SW seems best at first glance but there could always be something to the north you miss out if you do...

 

[Dirk1302]

I haven't decided yet, the more i look at it the more i'm beginning to hate this start. If there's something good in the north it's probably a plain cow which would make this start close to decent.Settling in place would give some health, going sw nets more land tiles and it blocks the ais more. If i run so far as not being able to work the cow anymore i'd have a decent second city site blocked of as i doubt that there are ais in the north, seems like tundra there.

after moving the warrior 1sw

Spoiler :

Doesn't reveal a food resource,reveals grass without forest 1sw,s and se, a plains wine tile 1w from the warrior, not too bad actually.

 

[oyzar]

@ dirk

Spoiler :

It also reveals that if you do go sw you'll get ocean in your bfc from the other side... Doubt it is worth it after all...

 

[Dirk1302]

@oyzar,

Spoiler :

Indeed, looking at the grassland tiles there seems to be desert farther south. i think i'm going to trust the generator for another resource in my bfc.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

warning - marathon speed, reveals much more of the map

up to 1780 bc

Spoiler :

Saved in worldbuilder as scenario in order to be able to switch speed; when I start the scenario, I get to choose leader, so some surprise is gone... meh.

I look at the map, and in all honesty seems as crappy as it can get

Since settling reveals deer, I go hunting and then... archery/ah(if I feel lucky, but probably I won't, given the depression this start provoked )

1st hut pops sailing... I'm still depressed

I spot a possible land block... and meet suly; gah, hate this backstabber.

Got hunting, go archery while waiting for worker

Get the health event... at least somethin'...

obviously, my sole citizen is thoroughly tested and the English nation is supposedly healthier. I put "Rule Britannia" to try and boost my morale

I meet louie... man, beside crappy start, everyone I hate seems to have gathered here...

after archery, obviously ah... Finally cap. spits a warrior(got another one from a hut) so I start exploring opposite direction - only for 4 turns apparenly, since the stupid warrior thinks is cool to die...)

my woody 2 get to 9/10 and I start gettin' stressed smelling a death just before unlocking he.

meet freddie... naturally, louie and freddie are already annoyed with each other... and I agree with fritz for once.

and me thinking I had something landblocked... south is nothing

looking at the map... I have... lotsa stone; and probably a tanking econ. in no time.

my brave warrior unlocks he after begging a barbarian warrior 5 turns to attack... rip, as he died later on

I research mysticism, then bw(probably because I'm sleepy...)

let the rex begin(I build abit of henge since cash will probably be tight)... York becomes barbarian central since I can't fog bust in the desert... Lawrence, where are you, need someone to peace those friggin' bedouins... At least archer gets to cg3 so should be ok... on paper...

damny you sully... not that I didn't know...

got 79 from henge

I put a settler in standby

and I stop; honestly, I have no clue what you can do on this map... you can't irrigate, half of it is desert, you can block easily, but you'll block the desert noone wants anyway, you have stone, in theory I could try mids but then I have no food for mids... I'll ponder(my shoe, I'm 99% sure I can't win it, but thinking never hurt anyone... )

and looking at sully's land I'm even more pissed

 

[silverbullet]

Can we borrow a crab or 2 from the first start to the 2nd one?

Hmm.. I am really not optimistic about this game. Let's hope that there is a nearby marble that we can easily block (more likely if we are at the north near tundra).
We will need the great library here with so little food.

 

[Snaaty]

Up to 600 BC... ...don´t think this game is winable... ...the map isnt bäh its more like supersupersuperbäh.

Spoiler :

View attachment 186694
see what I mean? (we have space for 6-8 cities but exactly 1 foodresource and 2 seafood

Edit:
@ silverbullet:
No... ...whatever you hope for... ...it isnt there

Edit2:
There arent any real spoiler in the spoiler, just an overview over the map/area surrounding our capital... ...this might be the worst start/map I have ever seen, and this is no joke

 

[Snaaty]

125 AD:

Time to give up

If you feel like seeing something REALLY depressive, I can recommend you the attached save

 

[oyzar]

So can we play with the first start now?

 

[Dirk1302]

Huh snaaty saying it's not winnable that a novelty .

I played it until 100 bc, sure it's hard but i'm not completely without hope. If you've read Snaaty's spoiler you can open this one.

Spoiler :

I was lucky to pop aesthetics from a map and i blocked off Sulei effectively.In other words i have a huge chunk of mediocre to bad land. I don't see a renaissance war going as there's no food for whipping/workshops and Liz isn't really a tech beast so far as the maintainance is bad. I have currency however and can begin trading techs and resources away. Actually my biggest problem is that Sulei is running away already in score.

Actually since running a good gp farm isn't easy i probably lose lib. If i'm a bit economical with the available space though i can settle ~15+ cities, some of them have only water to work with but even those cities bring in commerce later. So i might squeeze a peaceful win but i'm not too hopeful really.

I still don't know if we're on a Pangae or continents like map, if the latter going to astro might help.

So do we reroll or go with this one?

 

[silverbullet]

I suggest a re-roll. If Snaaty gave up I really don't feel like even trying. It would be interesting if you can pull a win here though.
I wouldn't like to play the first start though. It just seems excessive.
Let's give Liz a chance on a normal map.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Snaaty,

Spoiler :

, it took me a while to see what was so depressing about that save with GLH built etc. He sure came a long way to seek you out.

 

[Dirk1302]

I added a new start in the opening post with some comments, nothing to complain about this time, beautiful start.

 

[oyzar]

The second one looks like an almost perfect start for a cultural game.

 

[silverbullet]

Nice start indeed. We could stagnate the city at size 6 with 2 scientists to get an early academy, working rice, 2 gems, cottage and 2 scientists. Finding a better GP site is sure a priority.

Also, the early tech rate will be amazing here, it shouldn't be too long before civil service.
Also, if we find some good whipping site, we might consider catapult rush (I don't know how feasible it is on deity, probably depends on how much army the opponent builds).

 

[Dirk1302]

I've never seen a cat rush on deity, Rusten was considering it in his first aztec deity game.He had a few things going for him of which i remember:

-He had altars
-Pacal was the intended victim.

The plan was out when Pacal built the soz.

Indeed we could reach construction fast, being philo it would even be possible
to bulb math while we set science to 0 for a while, science up to 100 when researching
construction. You could be there ~1000 bc. But then you still have to build all the units.

 

[oyzar]

played to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

And it is over, got rushed by gilga. Was set up nicely if i could just last another 1000 years for a peacfull cultural victory with 5 cities, a nice GP farm that could easily run 6 artists, a couple secondary gp farms / production cities that could spam missionaries and temples and such. Just got a religion(confu) that i could spread to gilga and after i adopted his fav civic i should even have been able to trade with him. Ahh well...