Virusmonster's optimal strategy at Deity difficulty for a huge map

[Zombie69]

Didn't say you were Spanish, just that you spoke Spanish. You said you were a decendant of Incans, and those speak Spanish. So tell me, what language do you speak that says "percentage 100"? I'm curious because i love learning about foreign languages.

 

[Zombie69]

I'm currently reading your article...

Some tips

Early game, to avoid losing commerce to rounding errors, try either staying at %0 or %100 research rate.

Pre-build those axeman. It is absolutely crucial to have sufficient axeman ready to defend the stack attack. Leave 1 hammer before finalizing production so you don't have to pay upkeep.

It's nice to know that parts of my own article made it here, even though i absolutely abhor your suggestions to reload and consequently voted your thread a 1 like you asked!

 

[VirusMonster]

I'm currently reading your article...



It's nice to know that parts of my own article made it here, even though i absolutely abhor your suggestions to reload and consequently voted your thread a 1 like you asked!

O, yea I blatantly plagiarized those points from your article, but on top, I tested them out on deity. Binary research rate makes a few turns difference on research(not as big as I hoped, but still it does make difference) and pre-building makes a huge difference, because that extra upkeep costs for 1 axeman kills your research. If you pre-build 6-7 axeman and just get them when the AI stack is on the way to one of your cities, you can save some important upkeep.

But I am not sure whether pre-building loses some hammers if you wait a certain amount of time?! Do you have any figures on how long one can wait without losing any hammers? To not lose any hammers, every 10-20 turns, I switch my build and work on the axeman even if it is for a single turn.

I tested your whip trick on marathon, I whipped when 224 hammers were left on University. 3 citizens were used, creating 90x3=270 hammers, it did not take into account the fact I had forge. If it did, would have only needed 2 citized, because 90x1.25=90+22.5=112.5 and 112.5x2=225 hammers. So after 3 citizens were shipped I got extra 270-224=46 hammers, but for some reason they appears as only 39 base hammers. I dunno why. Then I had forge&expansive trait(125%) thus i get 96 final hammers on building a harbor. I don't see where I am making the mistake, perhaps there is no exploit on marathon. This all happens on a 6 sea resource city, the only hammer it can produce is the center square, I built cottages everywhere I whipped practically every singly building on that city, even wonders

thx for voting 1, hopefully i can get 1 star article one day. Too many 5 star voters atm, still at 2.32, need to go below 1.5.

On save&reloading, I can understand how people feel So I tried to target both audiences, the save&reload lovers and haters 2nd post of the article has a game plan for both for some save&reloading and for non-save&reloading. Bold part is for no-save&reloading.

My roots are mixed, but the language I speak natively is Turkish As you know Turks spread all over the world from central Asia Reseach shows that Native Americans have similar genetic code to that of Central Asia immigrants and even to that of Japanese

I hope you liked my smiley soup

 

[Zombie69]

But I am not sure whether pre-building loses some hammers if you wait a certain amount of time?! Do you have any figures on how long one can wait without losing any hammers? To not lose any hammers, every 10-20 turns, I switch my build and work on the axeman even if it is for a single turn.

At normal speed (no idea what it is on marathon), you start losing production 10 turns after you stopped making a unit. Switching back to it for one turn doesn't help. You won't lose any production while working on it, but as soon as you put it back in queue you'll start losing production again. Basically once those 10 turns are over, you're better off finishing the unit now unless you don't mind losing all that production. The only thing that you can do besides that is produce it at only 1 hammer/turn (making sure not to complete it) while focussing on food and commerce, because at least while working on it you don't lose production.

I tested your whip trick on marathon, I whipped when 224 hammers were left on University. 3 citizens were used, creating 90x3=270 hammers, it did not take into account the fact I had forge. If it did, would have only needed 2 citized, because 90x1.25=90+22.5=112.5 and 112.5x2=225 hammers.

There are slight mistakes in rounding. Try again at 223 hammers left, or 222. Eventually you should find the soft spot. I don't know what it is because i only play at normal speed, but it probably exists on marathon as well (i don't see why it wouldn't, the principle should be the same).

I whipped practically every singly building on that city, even wonders

Whipping wonders is inefficient because of the inherent penalty involved. You're better off whipping cheap stuff that will produce huge overflow and using the overflow on the wonder. Or chop rush the wonder, there's no penalty there. Make sure you connect any bonus ressource (stone, marble, copper) before the chops come in. Prechop if necessary.

I hope you liked my smiley soup

I hate smileys, but that's a whole different topic.

Thanks for answering my question. I now know that percentage signs go before the number in Turkish.

Do you think one can win a game on Deity with Quechua rush, without reloading, with fewer civs and at normal speed? Say on a standard sized map with 7 or so civs. Packed maps and marathon are really giving you an unfair advantage.

 

[VirusMonster]

At normal speed (no idea what it is on marathon), you start losing production 10 turns after you stopped making a unit. Switching back to it for one turn doesn't help. You won't lose any production while working on it, but as soon as you put it back in queue you'll start losing production again. Basically once those 10 turns are over, you're better off finishing the unit now unless you don't mind losing all that production. The only thing that you can do besides that is produce it at only 1 hammer/turn (making sure not to complete it) while focussing on food and commerce, because at least while working on it you don't lose production.

Hmm, I think on marathon since everything is scaled by 3, it should be 30 turns. 30 turns is good time. 30x1 gold for each axemanx 7 axeman make 210 gold. That is like putting the science slider up by 20-30% with 7 cities.

There are slight mistakes in rounding. Try again at 223 hammers left, or 222. Eventually you should find the soft spot. I don't know what it is because i only play at normal speed, but it probably exists on marathon as well (i don't see why it wouldn't, the principle should be the same).

I am trying to finish a HOF game atm, I will try it on a different game and will let you know if I don't forget about it.

Whipping wonders is inefficient because of the inherent penalty involved. You're better off whipping cheap stuff that will produce huge overflow and using the overflow on the wonder. Or chop rush the wonder, there's no penalty there. Make sure you connect any bonus ressource (stone, marble, copper) before the chops come in. Prechop if necessary.

What is the penalty involved? Is the penalty that even if you have stone, you won't get 2x hammer for each citizen hurrying? Is 90 a fix base hammers and having resources for a specific wonder useless for hurrying? Can you elaborate? I just spent 9 citizens to finish Hanging Gardens I did not have Stone either. With 5 clam and 1 fish, I grow back pretty fast.

I hate smileys, but that's a whole different topic.

Thanks for answering my question. I now know that percentage signs go before the number in Turkish.

Do you think one can win a game on Deity with Quechua rush, without reloading, with fewer civs and at normal speed? Say on a standard sized map with 7 or so civs. Packed maps and marathon are really giving you an unfair advantage.

Well I can tell you for sure that Godotnut, the cultural win deity HOF top-scorer, definitely prefers less opponents, because you get easier diplomacy for a cultural win. I play vs 18 because I like to fight vs small empires, but Godotnut likes playing vs 10, i.e. lowest you can have for HOF play, because he thinks he will have easier diplomacy, I agree with him on that point. You might fight less wars with less opponents.

First, I think Quechua rush works best on deity, because AI gets 2 settlers unlike other difficulty settings. With 2 settlers, no matter what map type you will play, or no matter how many opponents you play, map is going to be overcrowded pretty soon. I tried at lesser difficulty settings, but my initial powerhouse empire after 6-7 cities was slightly split and distance costs made a slight increase on my upkeep.

In my opinion, you can try smaller map sizes, standard map with 7 opps is pretty good, but I always try with the max number of opponents HOF rules allow, because:

1) your quechuas travel less distance to reach enemy cities.
2) Distance costs are less problem when overcrowded, because all 6-7 initial cities you will capture will be very close to your capital.
3) "We yearn to join our motherland" penalty can be finished off faster, because you have less cities to capture to wipe out a civilization.

But is it possible to win a less overcrowded map? As I said, if you go for a cultural win and want to build your own settlers to occupy some really good locations for good cities, yea, why not? But being a warmonger I prefer divide&conquer, thus more enemies.

Without reloading, is it possible to beat deity? Godotnut did it with a cultural victory Warmongering is much harder in my opinion, because you really need a very strong start, you need to capture 7-10 cities very quickly and tech to alphabet at the same time. My article talks about how to have very strong start at deity.

If you can capture 4 capitals and wipe out 3 civilizations until 1000-1500BC, you might have a chance to beat deity warmongering style. But I never succeeded but after so many losses, I think it is possible, but you need to maintain a very, very , very strong army at all times. AI just can build very, very, very, very, huge stacks. You need to bribe the AI to attack each other, use all diplomacy tricks you got or you are toast. Even if you save&reload, you can't escape huge stacks, save&reload can only kill 1-2 troops, not 10-20. Once you see the stack coming, go behind your walls, building walls is absolutely crucial and bring all axeman you can and pray that AI suicides all that he got on your walls. Usually, AI loses %80 of his army attacking a city with walls, and you lose perhaps %10-20. Then, go on the offensive, capture 2-3 cities and sign a treaty where you take 1 more city as part of the peace treaty. You extended your empire by 4 cities Rinse&repeat. Guess next attack , defend it, and counter.

At normal speed, it is going to be very hard with quechuas because before you capture any important cities, your quechuas might become obsolote. You can still get 3-4 cities, much harder to get 6-7 tough. Epic might work out alright, but I always play marathon.

 

[Zombie69]

What is the penalty involved? Is the penalty that even if you have stone, you won't get 2x hammer for each citizen hurrying? Is 90 a fix base hammers and having resources for a specific wonder useless for hurrying? Can you elaborate? I just spent 9 citizens to finish Hanging Gardens I did not have Stone either. With 5 clam and 1 fish, I grow back pretty fast.

The penalty is that you'll require more pop points for a given amount of hammers to complete a wonder than a normal building, just because it's a wonder. It think it's something like 50% more, but the exact figure may be wrong. A great way to avoid the penalty involves prebuilding lots of stuff, up to 1 hammer to completion. Then when you finally get the tech for the wonder (and the bonus resource if there is one), you pop rush all the prebuilt stuff one by one, which on marathon will give you 89 hammers of overflow each towards your wonder. You can also pop rush them in advance and let them sit in the queue at 179/90 until you wait for the tech, with similar results.

 

[Kalleyao]

I don't claim to be a "god-like" civ4 player, my multiplayer experience is mediocre, I am trying to learn the game through test&trial, through asking questions to other players, through learning from other's experiences. Since I could not succeed with the worker lure out trick myself against Romans at one of my test games, I asked a more knowledgable wannabe person, Kallayeo, for his opinion. Nothing god-like in that question, just a curious question how same tactic actually works out. If he shares some tips why I failed and why he succeeded with this trick, I would accept he knows his stuff. Right now, he made a comment without backing it up just to claim that he is more superior player than me, which I think totally irrelevant discussion, because we are here to learn tactics not to prove who is more superior. You can go to the civ4 league and test your skills out and show you play better civ4 than the rest of the world.

I have had a good experience with a certain strategy on deity huge map, that is why I decided to write this article. Everything I wrote in this article is backed up by my own test&trial, it is not an imaginary civ4 strategy that is purely dependent on save&reloading to win zillion of combats. If you follow this strategy, you might have very nice 6 city start by 2000-2500BC on a deity huge map. I usually lose afterwards, but I learned from my losses and put my experience into the article so others can not do the mistakes I did.



It takes too little effort actually, you just would have your laptop open and save&reload important battles to minimize unit loss. The mere possibility of such thing is sufficient to say that lack of HOF entries by my part can't logically lead to the conclusion that I am a bad civ4 player. Perhaps, on my list of priorities scoring on HOF is pretty low.

I am an alright player, I know the basics of the game, you won't fool me by saying worker lure out trick works in all cases, because I have seen it not work with my own eyes.

I am actually a civ4 king in disguise, but for now I have to keep my identity secret.

First.... My name is Kalleyao. Even if I explain you won't understand so no point in explaining that. Also, with your attitude noone will explain anything to you. If you're here to learn stuff maybe you should ask instead of teach others by your reload tries.

 

[IAMWHOIAM]

Muhahaha

Bro, I know the difference between critique and insult very well, but I seriously doubt that your stunningly low post count combined with your cheeky posts will get you anywhere. Why don't you try playing a few games on Settler difficulty? Perhaps, you will learn some manners. Or maybe not, you might get even more angry by losing at settler, haha Why don't you and IamwhoIam just play some multiplayer; it seems like you have found your match! Don't forget to put no AI or it might beat you both

You both obviously have not tested the ideas yourself and talk on based on other's experiences. I update the article regularly based on all sorts of feedback, both good and bad, but you are too blind and ignorant to realize any effort that is going in to the article. I added the "what to do if not getting a perfect hills/plain strat" section after slightly unhappy comments, but you won't even bother reading stuff. I even corrected myself after suggesting the worker lure out trick that later I tested out to be not working.

I might attempt to understand your garbage if you had first attempted to beat deity fair & square and put here on the forums why you failed. Without trying it out on deity yourself, you will never come close to comment meaningfully on a deity strategy, yet alone to understand it first.

Moderator Action: Warned for flaming.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

P.S to moderator: They call curse words in their posts, that appears as ****, but you won't warn them at all. Most likely, they will make a new account because of their low post count and skill level, but how is that fair? You should have warned them first!

wHATS YOUR SCORE FR DIETY WINS? 0WIN-1000000LOSS.

 

[VirusMonster]

I laugh at both kindergarden style comments Don't try to abuse people's sincerity, you lose big points.

 

[gryjrd]

I hate smileys, but that's a whole different topic.

Smilies rock so ****.

 

[bertram]

I was trying this quechua rush strategy last night and it seems rather succesful. So much that I forgot all about my economy and just captured cities. It wasnt until my forces were on strike I woke up - oops maybe I shouldnt have kept all those cities, but I guess I got caried away with my victorious armies

By the way, I played Immortal on a small map with 10 AIs. Does anyone have experience with this strategy on smaller maps?

And I also want to comment on the save/load-thing: I had to restart the game several times to get a spot with a hill/forest-tile to boost my production. I think I'll have to try next time to accept my first starting location no matter what without restarting and see how it gets me.

 

[VirusMonster]

I was trying this quechua rush strategy last night and it seems rather succesful. So much that I forgot all about my economy and just captured cities. It wasnt until my forces were on strike I woke up - oops maybe I shouldnt have kept all those cities, but I guess I got caried away with my victorious armies

By the way, I played Immortal on a small map with 10 AIs. Does anyone have experience with this strategy on smaller maps?

And I also want to comment on the save/load-thing: I had to restart the game several times to get a spot with a hill/forest-tile to boost my production. I think I'll have to try next time to accept my first starting location no matter what without restarting and see how it gets me.

Well, slightly overcrowding the map helps for the overall success of the quechua rush. If you play on smaller map size than huge, you still can put in as many opponents as the current HOF rules allow. I think game play will be similar to that of a huge map, because map will still be overcrowded to the same extent as in huge map with 18 civilizations. Now, Immortal difficulty overcrowds slower than Deity difficulty, not only because AI has faster food growth bonus, but also AI gets 2 settlers instead of 1 only at Deity difficulty. Thus, no matter what map size you play at deity or how many opponents, expect map to be filled out pretty soon.

As far as restarting to get a good start, I think settling on a plains/hill is important, because over 30 turns, you will have produced 1 extra quechua, but getting that 3 hammer tile (plains/hill/forest) is not so important. You can grow size 2 first quickly(using a 3 food tile), then start producing those quechuas with 2 citizens you got or you can still produce quechuas in 8 turns with just 4 hammers/turn(assuming you have 1food2hammer tile, which is usually within city radius).

Gl, keep us posted about your success or failures with this tactic.

 

[bertram]

Overcrowding seems to be essential for this rush-strategy, mainly - I think - because quechuas are too slow to travel longer distances.. And actually also in the new game I started, I think there's a bit too far to the next civ.

Anyways, as for my striking troops-game, my cities were to far away from each other, there are tons of barbarians and the last civ I took a city from started to counterattack me so I chickened out and started a new game .

Things now seem to go a little better (guess I'm assimilating the strategy ). One thing, though, is there pattern in what civs use two or three defending archers?

(ps. what does "Gl" mean?)

 

[DaviddesJ]

(ps. what does "Gl" mean?)

Good Luck.

 

[VirusMonster]

Overcrowding seems to be essential for this rush-strategy, mainly - I think - because quechuas are too slow to travel longer distances.. And actually also in the new game I started, I think there's a bit too far to the next civ.

Anyways, as for my striking troops-game, my cities were to far away from each other, there are tons of barbarians and the last civ I took a city from started to counterattack me so I chickened out and started a new game .

Things now seem to go a little better (guess I'm assimilating the strategy ). One thing, though, is there pattern in what civs use two or three defending archers?

(ps. what does "Gl" mean?)

In the first part of my article where I discuss the settings, I suggest no barbarians To be honest, I have little experience with barbarians, but I can say you for sure that you will definitely see a few barbarian archers attack your quechua fortified cities before you produce any axeman. I would make sure that each city has at least 2 defending quechuas at all times against barbarians, otherwise, just mass your units on the border where you expect the war.

Don't go below 20-30% science rate. I know you can capture more cities, but know when to stop. You can reach 40-50% science rate with just 6 cities captured. 6 cities is what I think is the optimum until 2000-2500BC.

The pattern with 2 defending archers inside city is that once the AI produces the 3rd archer and you have a quechua fortified near city borders, the AI will attack with the archer on the fortified quechua (assuming you are in war). Now, only 2 are left, and you can approach with yoru quechua stack from outside enemy city cultural borders and attack the 2 lone archers. If you let the stack approach too soon, the AI won't sacrifice the 3rd archer.

gl is good luck, gj is good job

 

[bertram]

yes, now I remember that you actually did recommend no barbarians. And in the new game I started I also switched off barbarians.

A brief status: sorry I dont remember what year, but I have now taken out the Egyptians and the Japanese, and I have 4 cities, the two capitals and I just founded my second city. Persia, my next neighbour, is getting pretty big - around 450 points and I have maybe around 230. I have just discovered copper and am wondering about an axeman-rush because I've spotted some of Cyrus' "horseman"-units. Another thought is to let my cities grow abit more especially the former japanese capital and my own, and also get some axemen to keep Cyrus off. I guess if I get too weak he will attack...

the strategy with "inviting" the third archer out of the cities is cool, I used to capture the japanese capital. by the way it was located on hills and I used 7 quechuas and as far as I remember 4 survived..

 

[VirusMonster]

yes, now I remember that you actually did recommend no barbarians. And in the new game I started I also switched off barbarians.

A brief status: sorry I dont remember what year, but I have now taken out the Egyptians and the Japanese, and I have 4 cities, the two capitals and I just founded my second city. Persia, my next neighbour, is getting pretty big - around 450 points and I have maybe around 230. I have just discovered copper and am wondering about an axeman-rush because I've spotted some of Cyrus' "horseman"-units. Another thought is to let my cities grow abit more especially the former japanese capital and my own, and also get some axemen to keep Cyrus off. I guess if I get too weak he will attack...

the strategy with "inviting" the third archer out of the cities is cool, I used to capture the japanese capital. by the way it was located on hills and I used 7 quechuas and as far as I remember 4 survived..

nice job on attacking an aggressive civ first and again nice job for killing archers on hill capital! I am glad archer lure out works

Don't worry about overall score! At higher difficulty levels, you will be most likely on the last spot until you capture 5-6 cities. Early on, score is just an illision to me. Instead, watch out for power graph. It really tells much about who is massing an army and who is not.

I updated the article about not researching bronzeworking anytime soon. Instead, I suggest Pottery->Writing->Alphabet. With Alphabet, you can trade for BronzeWorking and much more. Alphabet really makes a huge difference in research, try not to trade it until much later. Only trade cheap techs for bronzeworking.

 

[bertram]

hmm more problems.. but first an update.
I think I'm located on an island, left is only Cyrus and I. We both have 6 cities total, and he has about twice as big an army as I. There's a bit more space left to the south for me to expand, but I'm hesitatious on that for now. Science-rate is around 10-30% only and i manage to bring -5 to +3 gold from that.

I see two developments now in my game:
1) I realize that my long-term survival is dependend on wiping out the Persians with an Axe-man rush. Prime concern here is whether I can support all the units required to do that? (Side-remark: I guess it will be necessary to sack the Persian cities due to lack of strength to keep them defended). I have spotted that Persian cities are defended by Longbow-archers (str. 6). Could pose a problem for the Axe-men - are they strong enough? Or put in other words: will I be able to support enough units to kill the 3-4 longbow-archers present in the nearest Persian city?
Maybe Swordsmen can be a solution, but unfortunately it will take me a long time to get there because of the low research-rate.

2) Should I prior to the attack on the Persians expand some more to the south to maybe get some more money to support a bigger army? This seems as a plan that takes longer time, waiting for the cities to grow larger while Cyrus can build more units/research more.

Anyone has some thoughts on that?

 

[bertram]

2485BC:[/B] 2 cities captured simultaneously, and 2nd empire wiped out. I should have only kept their best 3 cities, but I am greedy and keep the extra 7th one surrounded by many jungle&forests. My empire has 7 cities, 19 population, and still runs at %40-50 research rate. Exceptional start for a deity huge map! You can continue warmongering or try Godotnut's cultural win strategy from this point forward

Do you stop your rush when you have killed two civs? Or do aim for a certain number of cities?

They are profitable by themselves, i.e. do not run on deficit

Is it really posible to have them profitable already when you conquer the cities? Does map-size influence this? Does maintenance grow higher faster on smaller maps?

 

[VirusMonster]

hmm more problems.. but first an update.
I think I'm located on an island, left is only Cyrus and I. We both have 6 cities total, and he has about twice as big an army as I. There's a bit more space left to the south for me to expand, but I'm hesitatious on that for now. Science-rate is around 10-30% only and i manage to bring -5 to +3 gold from that.

I see two developments now in my game:
1) I realize that my long-term survival is dependend on wiping out the Persians with an Axe-man rush. Prime concern here is whether I can support all the units required to do that? (Side-remark: I guess it will be necessary to sack the Persian cities due to lack of strength to keep them defended). I have spotted that Persian cities are defended by Longbow-archers (str. 6). Could pose a problem for the Axe-men - are they strong enough? Or put in other words: will I be able to support enough units to kill the 3-4 longbow-archers present in the nearest Persian city?
Maybe Swordsmen can be a solution, but unfortunately it will take me a long time to get there because of the low research-rate.

2) Should I prior to the attack on the Persians expand some more to the south to maybe get some more money to support a bigger army? This seems as a plan that takes longer time, waiting for the cities to grow larger while Cyrus can build more units/research more.

Anyone has some thoughts on that?

With 6 close-placed cities you should be able to run at %40-50 research. Consider working on cottages?! I play huge maps only so maintanence could not get worse than a huge map.

After I capture 6 cities, I usually capture only 2 more, and at 8, I stop the rapid expansion phase and enter diplomatic warfare. You then try to gang a weak enemy with another neighbour, enter religious wars, etc.. But that is also where I have most of my troubles. Many people prefer picking no religion at that stage, but I prefer to pick a religion and therefore pick my side in warfare.

Axeman vs longbowman a definite no-no. You need to research Construction at that phase to produce Elephants and Cats to continue with rapid expansion. Don't waste your experienced axeman against strong longbows who are prolly fortified in a high culture city.