Theory crafting a Deity win with no tech trading (huge Pangaea): Elizabeth of Sumeria Great Wall EE

[drewisfat]

AGG AI weighs whether a city is under threat very high in peace negotiations. Either next to a city or 2 tiles away counts as threatening it. So even on Deity the AI will consistently make peace after you worker steal if you have a single warrior nearby. (Some exceptions apply, like if the AI is also threatening your city too, and sometimes they're unwilling if they have a holy city).
This doesn't just work for worker steals. You can extort more favorable peace deals by forking cities, or even get out of hopeless wars this way.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Ya, "Aggressive AI setting" has a big effect on the End War calculation that allows a Cease Fire to be signed.

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First is the war success modification, then the power ratio modification, then the land tile difference modification, and then finally the Aggressive AI setting where whomever is threatening more cities than the other guy gets a final divide by 3 adjustment which is gigantic.

A coastal human capital vs. an AI with a holy city with endless land tiles is going to get have a hard time getting a peace treaty at the start of the game even with threatening a city and good war success.


If the land tile and power rating (soldier) difference is not too great, the war success from the worker steal and threatening one city can easily get a fast Cease Fire if the AI does not successfully counterattack and get some war success.

Without "Aggressive AI", worker stealing on Deity is quite dangerous.
Steal the worker, don't get tagged by an Archer, kill a Scout somewhere, tech Bronze Working for the Soldiers boost, and hopefully your capital is 20 land tiles and the AI is a lot of water tiles.
Delete Warrior if necessary to avoid AI winning a battle.

 

[MassRiflemen]

Curious why? Is it because AGG AI causes the AI to not escort non-combat units?

(I assume AGG AI means the "Aggressive AI" setting, not an AI with the Aggressive trait.)

All you have to do with Agg AI is park your warrior on a forest hill within the cap cross and you can worker steal for days. you have to make peace asap though, otherwise they'll spam 30 archers.

 

[MassRiflemen]

It would be fun to watch you stream. If you can post screenshots here or to a thread kind of like what livinginaz and me did (post updates like a story), I'd totally comment and follow!

Ok. There is no way to make this work on Deity.

However, I went for something harder than Huge Pangea on Immortal, I made the map Huge Lakes, with low sea level. 987 turn game, required two reloads (oneo to figure out the sequence to win lib race, second to not die to alexanders 200 knights just prior to Rifling).

I make making the google slide show now.

The settings are Huge-Lakes-Low Sea Level; Marathon, Agg AI, No tech trading, No vassals, No barbs, 10 Players, No Random Events.
Conquest only; Permanent Alliances Enabled.

Leader: Suleiman of the Sumerians.
Goal: Great Wall + Parthenon + Pacifism for Great Spy Spam.
Goal: Chop the Chicen Itza the survive and PA a religious leader.
Required: Stone and One Gold/Gem and one wet rice or corn.
Preferred: Marble for Oracle slingshot into monarchy.
Preferred: Win lib race for Nationalism and whip Taj Majal for super great spy spam.

The early game pros of Lakes are that resources are plentiful, starting locations are usually very good. I only had to reroll a few times.
The second pro is that you know where the AI's are. All players spawn inline between jungle and tundra. So you move warrior left or right at very start.

Now from this start there are good things. There is a second gold between me and Louis. This will pay for his capitol until it's function. I decided to settle on the stone to speed up Gwall timing.

Now the bad. Louis is my neighbor. His creative pressure is unbearable. He will also threaten the Gwall and the Parthenon. He must die. I start by laming him with two consecutive worker steals, then chop 10 vultures and finish him off.

The cons of Lakes is that it gives the AI an incredible amount of land to settle, which is why its more difficult than Pangea.

I will post the slideshow on google docs when its done.

 

[Fippy]

Goal: Chop the Chicen Itza the survive and PA a religious leader.

Sure thing, with pizza nothing can go wrong.

 

[Gumbolt]

Pick impossible settings and hope you win. Huge setting on deity is asking a lot. No fail gold will make little or no impact here. Great Wall will as the barbs will be streaming in on huge settings.

 

[MassRiflemen]

This sounds like it would be very fun to watch.

Would you put it on YouTube?

Here is a game on Immortal that I won through pure espionage, opne of the most difficult games I ever played. Video is in seven parts.
Only two reloads. One very early in the game, because I forget to build a quarry when chopping the great wall; second reload was I failed the mids and I refuse fail gold.

Total of seven parts:

 

[Kaitzilla]

***Golden Rule: No fail gold allowed***

*Map Settings* Huge, Pang 11 civs, No tech trading, Marathon***

Unless someone can vouch they've won deity on a huge Pangaea with no tech trading, it is completely impossible using, improving or fine tuning any method that I use on emperor or immortal.

As it stands I have a 0% win rate on deity when I prohibit the use of fail gold. Even when I allow fail gold, I lose about 90% of them.

Without fail gold I have an 80% win rate with any aggressive leader on Immortal, 100% with Boudica of Sumeria (slaughter Ai for days with Boudica Vultures) and Elizabeth of Native America (a relatively peaceful win that ends up with a Perm Alliance).

What I'm considering it to switch these leaders and civs. I HAVE NOT TRIED IT YET, however, this it the outline of what I am planning.

Elizabeth of Sumeria---at least one gold in capitol with stone visible upon settling. Also regenerate if not near coast.

Chop the Great Wall asap. Chop a rax in your two best production cities and chop two vultures and whip two vultures and kill the nearest coastal neighbor. Use their capitol to chop the Oracle and get metal casting, chop a forge and run an engineer and get the colossus. This great wall rush also makes barbs irrelevant. Only triremes are needed for seafood protection.

Once alphabet is researched and all food techs are done. Stop researching. Period. Elizabeth can produce two Great Spies in no time. Keep a 20% EE silder and split the points between the two top techers with equal weight (since you don't know which techer is gonna get dogpiled)

Use this moment to raise massive vulture armies with a single spear. Go forth and capture the Pyramids and the Great Lighthouse. Your forests are only used to for chopping vultures. After these are captured, raze the cities around them to reset the culture war in your favor. Pillage everything else (don't throw units away) to effectively kill the AI. Never give peace. Come back every 10 ten turns to pillage over and over.

Have one city spam spies all game. Steal everything. Self tech to castles, whip these for the EE bonus. Don't tech economics (obsoletes castle) or astro (obsoletes colossus), until you're ready to go assembly line. Always chop/whip the EE buildings (security bur, intel agency and jail) upon availabilty.

Get the Kremlim by self teching communism and blow your great engineer on the statue of liberty and turn all specialists into spies.
Run merc the entire game for the extra spy spec.

Althogh you'll never be ahead in miltary tech, the idea is that Elizabeth's Philo trait makes the Sumerian EE OP as hell, combined with her FIN trait, allowing for a monster sized war machine of 40-50 vultures pre 0AD and a metric ton of maces/trebs/pikes in the middle ages, (like 200+units) only running a 20% slider until the Renaissancemallowing her to capture the mids and GL to compliment the self built colossus, maximizing her gold per turn at the coastal locations she initially conquers.

Any thoughts on what else I shoulder consider before throwing another 48-72 hours at another horrbily failed Deity attempt with those map settings?

Marathon speed makes the game much easier.

No fail gold makes it harder.

No tech trading probably makes the game harder, but I'm not sure.
I'm not too familiar with that setting.

Yes, an espionage economy and full use of all the various marathon strategies is probably best.


I have a much better computer these days, so I might dip my toe into the huge map size once more if I have some time and post any thoughts.


**Edit**
Here we go, a grudge match map against all the warmongers.

Random Leader vs. 12 AI
Alexander, Brennus, Genghis Khan, Huayna Capac, Mao, Montezuma, Napoleon, Ragnar, Stalin, Suryavarman, Shaka, Tokugawa

Pangaea
Huge
Temperate
Medium Sea Level
Ancient Era
Marathon Speed
Pressed Shoreline
Cylindrical World Wrap
Standard Resources

No Tech Trading
No Tribal Villages
No Random Events

No Mod

=====================

Reroll twice to get a good map...



Double wet corn and a good leader.
No idea about the rest.
Good luck!

 

[MassRiflemen]

Marathon speed makes the game much easier.

No fail gold makes it harder.

No tech trading probably makes the game harder, but I'm not sure.
I'm not too familiar with that setting.

Yes, an espionage economy and full use of all the various marathon strategies is probably best.


I have a much better computer these days, so I might dip my toe into the huge map size once more if I have some time and post any thoughts.


**Edit**
Here we go, a grudge match map against all the warmongers.

Random Leader vs. 12 AI
Alexander, Brennus, Genghis Khan, Huayna Capac, Mao, Montezuma, Napoleon, Ragnar, Stalin, Suryavarman, Shaka, Tokugawa

Pangaea
Huge
Temperate
Medium Sea Level
Ancient Era
Marathon Speed
Pressed Shoreline
Cylindrical World Wrap
Standard Resources

No Tech Trading
No Tribal Villages
No Random Events

No Mod

=====================

Reroll twice to get a good map...



Double wet corn and a good leader.
No idea about the rest.
Good luck!

I'd keep rerolling. Need either stone for the Gwall or gold to tech the gwall and karate chop it without stone.

 

[jnebbe]

and a good leader.

>hammurabi

Good luck! I know I would absolutely not have the patience for a game like that but I always like reading writeups of said games! and ofc bowmen+AGG are probably great for a setup like this

 

[AcaMetis]

No tech trading probably makes the game harder, but I'm not sure.
I'm not too familiar with that setting.

Aside from the obvious implications with your empire management, since you have to be able to get each and every tech yourself without being able to sell old techs for small collections (to large mountains) of gold, the biggest impact that NTT has is in terms of diplomacy. You can't (effectively) bribe AIs into wars, off of each other before one vassals the other (though no tech trading also means no tech gifting between master and vassal, at least), pay off an AI who DoWed you, etc. You can still do that if you've got enough gold on hand, but it's significantly harder to do than in a regular tech trading game.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Spoiler Game Report 1 (Grudge Match) :

Welp, that didn't last long.
It is possible to Control + Left Click and open the trade dialogue with AI and see if they "We Have Enough On Our Hands Right Now" to see who is plotting war.
Monty was the first to start plotting.
Guess who he targeted even though he had like 12 targets?

Spoiler :

Maybe I could lose the capital and keep going?

Wow, the RNG gods wanted me to keep going after all.
I gave Monty what he wanted and got a 10 turn peace treaty.
Knew roading that 2nd corn at the start was good busywork.

Aggressive Civ meant half price barracks, free 10% , and the cover promotion for extra punch vs. Archers.
With enough Axes and Spears I quickly targeted Sury who had Archers and Chariots only.

Spoiler :

Rolls could have been better at Sury's capital.
Took a couple turns to capture it even though it had a lot of Chariots defending.
T180 Alex to my southwest declared war on Shaka to my south!

...
And now I'm lost.
Lots of forests to chop, but no fail to create.
Can't trade techs to catch up either.
I think... Hunting-> Animal Husbandry was a mistake.
More than anything I need gold, not food, hammers, or Chariots.
Wish I did Fishing -> Pottery.

Ugh, not sure this map had any chance if that Copper wasn't up there or an AI snagged it first.

Will report how the game goes.
This map feels really hard to beat.

Since espionage economy is likely the right play, the Great Wall-focused starts for the Great Spy might be the correct strategy for no fail no tech trading.

Will give it some more thought.

 

[Fippy]

Is plunder higher on Mara?
There are some farms and mines on your pics

 

[MassRiflemen]

Is plunder higher on Mara?
There are some farms and mines on your pics

About 12 gold for a mine, 100+ gold for an early town, 50+ for a village. Sitting bull's dogs warriors are good for early pillage.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Is plunder higher on Mara?
There are some farms and mines on your pics

City capture gold is the same on Normal Speed and Marathon.

So is the gold from pillaging cottages, farms, etc.

Need to capture a lot of cities and pillage a lot of tiles to tech Fishing or Pottery on Marathon speed.

Failure scales just fine though

 

[Kaitzilla]

Spoiler Game Report 2 900BC (Grudge Match Game) :

Finished off Sury.
Not too hard to mop up with just a few cities left.

Spoiler :

Caught Monty plotting again, so kept an eye out and sure enough he came again.
Giant army was waiting for him.

Spoiler :

After finishing off his stack at my capital, I attacked south towards Monty's jungle city that was captured from Brennus who got wiped out.
Gave the city to Shaka for Fair Trade bonus and to develop the jungle tiles, but it only gave +1 Fair Trade since so many turns have passed since meeting Shaka.
Peace Treaty in disgust.


Then Ragnar caught me by complete surprise with a DOW and landed amphibious troops.
He burned my arctic city instead of keeping it and developing it for me.

My main army wasn't sure if the main attack would come from the east or south, but I was leaning east.
When some showed up I moved up and they retreated.

Spoiler :

I captured that same small city over and over again every time a stack of 6 units showed up to recapture the city.
City Raider bonuses are great for Deities with endless units.
When Ragnar got weak enough I pounced.

Spoiler :

It is now 900BC and Ragnar's capital is about to fall.

The giant power Shaka has Alex down to 4 cities but can't quite finish him off.
Hyuana Capac has kept out of wars and is taking the lead in tech.
Monty is plotting yet again.
Ghenghis Khan is big to the northeast, but is quiet in this game so far.

China has Pyramids in the west.
Shaka has a religious hindu capital to the south.

Where to attack next?!
Time is running out before Catapults show up and totally change the game.
Lots of civs have Calendar resources now.

I'll attach my save if anyone wants to jump in with a more mature empire and battle in every direction.
The teching crisis is quite acute.

 

[Gumbolt]

What is odd is 2 AI have currency but lack alphabet. Not seen that before. No one has alphabet either.
Ragnar plotting a war and builds a fleet to attack you? haha. Bizarre as you share a land border. Guess he picked the city with weakest defence.

Always interesting on maps with 12 ai as you can never be sure what they will do. 11 ai no one at pleased yet. Likely as you picked all the war mongers so start -1-2 diplo wise.

With 12 cities you should be okay now? Capital still a little exposed to AI. Loving the XP you have on all your units.

 

[MassRiflemen]

What is odd is 2 AI have currency but lack alphabet. Not seen that before. No one has alphabet either.
Ragnar plotting a war and builds a fleet to attack you? haha. Bizarre as you share a land border. Guess he picked the city with weakest defence.

Always interesting on maps with 12 ai as you can never be sure what they will do. 11 ai no one at pleased yet. Likely as you picked all the war mongers so start -1-2 diplo wise.

With 12 cities you should be okay now? Capital still a little exposed to AI. Loving the XP you have on all your units.

AI's dont tech alphabet until they're forced to in No Tech Trading. They usually pick it before they beeline Liberalism, so they can spam build research.

When you see an AI teching alphabet or philosophy, is when you send a few spies and change their civics, which will force them to assume anarchy to switch their civics back, delaying their liberalism beeline until you get it first. If they are spiritual, then don't bother, and forget the lib race. Tech to steel instead and kill the AI that got liberalism.

The ais that commonly beeline lib (willem, mansa, darius, etc), always follow up with constitution and democracy after. Meaning they'll still be on longbows. Don't prevent them from going lib, let them.

Then roll up with Musket, pike and cannon. Enjoy your free wonders.

 

[civac]

This is common in MP as well especially if spies are banned. Alphabet is something you get just prior to Printing Press if tech trading is not enabled.

 

[Kaitzilla]

What is odd is 2 AI have currency but lack alphabet. Not seen that before. No one has alphabet either.
Ragnar plotting a war and builds a fleet to attack you? haha. Bizarre as you share a land border. Guess he picked the city with weakest defence.

Always interesting on maps with 12 ai as you can never be sure what they will do. 11 ai no one at pleased yet. Likely as you picked all the war mongers so start -1-2 diplo wise.

With 12 cities you should be okay now? Capital still a little exposed to AI. Loving the XP you have on all your units.

Ya, capital is exposed for sure.
Need more diplomacy and buffer cities!