Deity for beginners: a peaceful builder strat.

[Txurce]

Background

Two consecutive victorious games without the spaceship option (the “Deity for beginners” and “Isle of the Sleeping God” threads) established pretty clearly that an early rush, followed by a long cocoon period in which you steadily catch up in tech as the AI plateaus in the modern era, allows enough time to build a strong modern military and go from last to first. The trickiest part is making sure the AI doesn’t destroy you in that middle period, when your military is basically obsolete; a low profile and paying tribute mean even more than alliances and an ability to take out those half-assed midgame invasions.

Pre-game strategy

For my next game, I decided to keep the spaceship option on, which meant that I couldn’t afford to hang back and let the “tech wall” bring me back into the game. Before starting, I concluded the obvious: that generating enough beakers against an AI who has a 40% production edge and trades with itself is the key to winning the space race. This led me to draw up a list of my first three goals: the Great Library, the Forbidden Palace, and one of the happiness wonders. All three go a long way toward generating tech, and getting them would leave me with a shot at my fourth goal: the TOE wonder. If I picked up the TOE, I would have a good chance of building Hoover’s as well, and that should be enough for me to edge out the AI for the launch.

Playing with eight civs on a standard setting, I chose Egypt, reasoning that the industrious trait would be key, and changing governments more than once would mean more than the scientific trait’s free techs (especially if I had the GL). I shied away from a militaristic civ, because I wasn’t going for a domination win, and the goals I set up for myself meant I might not be able to mount an early rush in time.

The ancient era: peaceful expansion and the Great Library.

Egypt started on one end of a continent with Rome and Greece. The terrain to the north was fertile, with a central river and two sites for settler factories. I sealed off those civs from 40% of the continent with two warriors on a chokehold, while building two settler factories, a worker factory, and the GL site as my first four towns.

The key was the GL city, which was surrounded by plains and forests – ideal for an early build – and on a river. One worker built roads, a second worked the GL site tiles, and all the rest fattened up the GL city to size 12 as quickly as I could (eventually resulting in a 30% despot luxury rate). This city had a temple; my subsequent towns were scheduled for barracks, then War Chariots.

With help from the chokehold, I was able to build thirteen cities, even though the Greeks, Persians and Romans eventually sailed over and planted another eight (see map). I researched the wheel, traded for warrior code, researched through literature, then saved my gold. The Great Library was built in Heliopolis in 370BC. I then started work on the FP, and bounced the capital to the GL city (Heliopolis).

The focus on city- and wonder building slowed down the growth of my military. At this relatively late point, there wasn’t much value to attacking the Roman cities bordering me, and a clear benefit to maintaining that chokehold as a border. My obvious target was the four Greek cities scattered along my coast, and I didn’t have enough WCs to take on hoplites, against an enemy who would soon have knights. The result is that I plunged into the Middle Ages as a monarchy without any sort of aggressive expansion… in fact, with no war at all.

This is a map of the Egyptian half of the continent, circa 10AD:

[Theseus]

Damn, Txurce, you are an ironman.

A plains start, as Egypt with cultural linking on... on Deity.

It's hard to see, but it looks like you sacrificed everything for the REX, GL, and the palace bounce. To be at Music Theory, and still working on Temples and Marketplaces (and no Barracks, I think)...

[Txurce]

Theseus, you're basically right. The biggest trade-off was not having the muscle to rush in time; only half my cities have barracks, and that didn't cut it. I didn't intend to do this, but couldn't resist building settlers with my wheat and cattle grasslands boosts. On the other hand, I probably wound up with more cities than I would have, had I rushed. It was a good scenario for peaceful expansion, and I would have been limited by geography to only a war with the Romans.

The palace bounce was no big deal, because I was using the city as a settler factory anyway. However, I'm going to pay culturally for the late temples, and the late marketplaces are delaying my transition to republic by a century or two.

Going for the GL was a gamble, because even with my heavy focus on it, someone could theoretically have beaten me to it. Having it is better than the tech gains a war or two would have gained me, though, and my gold can be saved for the techs I'll have to buy down the road.

As you can see, I'll have the FP in twenty turns, which is pretty good. The next real hurdle is snagging a happiness wonder, which should allow me to keep my luxury slider at zero throughout the game.

[alva]

just wondering, why do you build your Fp this close to your capital? Do you plan to jump it again? Wouldn't it be better to use it as a pre-build? You got music coming up anyway

[ducki]

Fantastic!

I'm a (nearly) total newb and prefer building to warmongering - yeah, I know you have to go to war some, but would prefer to have long periods of building punctuated with brief Wars With Purpose.

Thanks for taking this on and please keep it up! Enquiring minds want to know!

Side question: Are you planning a lot of governmental changes later on, or do you plan to just go from Despot to Republic to (insert end-game govt)?

The reason I ask is, my playstyle is to generally get to Republic as soon as possible and leave it there as long as possible - which is making me wonder if religious is worth it for me.

Thanks again for trying this out. Keep us posted, please!

[Arrian]

Damn.... I echo Theseus' comment, Txurce. That's not much of a start position, and yet you play it out on Diety, with Rome & Greece as your neighbors. It's not SVC, but it's pretty hardcore. Great planning to nab the GL, btw.

-Arrian

[Txurce]

Alva, I considered using the FP as a happiness wonder pre-build, but as you can see, it'll be finished well before I research music theory.

I'm building the FP so close to my capital because my civ isn't going to get much bigger; I only need a few more cities to have a decent research core for the SR. Greater expansion would probably be a losing trade-off, as switching over to building knights at this point (for example) would cripple the infrastructure builds that are necessary to win the SR.

My current placement seems near-ideal (to me!) if I remain static or swallow up the nearby Greek cities, and good enough if I expand southward into the jungle. About the only reasons to build it elsewhere would be if I planned on expanding deep into Rome, which I don't, or if I had kept Thebes as the capital and built the FP smack in the middle of the jungle. But that wouldn't aid me for centuries (if ever), so I went for the soonest possible benefit. Keep in mind that I am no longer benefiting from the GL, and need every advantage I can get to hang in the tech race... starting with low corruption.

[alva]

Why not slow it sown abit(the building i mean) or crank up your science and work with a small deficit(you got plenty of money, well eugh ,you got enough )

Some other civ might discover music, wich means it should shorten your turns.

Just seems a waste to me to not take the wonder, as it will basically remove any happiness problems. Not to mention the extra culture points.
Could we have some screens from your histograph(culture wise) are you catching up, leading, running away??

[Txurce]

Ducki, I plan to switch from monarchy to republic as soon as it makes fiscal sense, and then to democracy as soon as I research it. When I play with non-religious civs, I usually switch once only as well, either to monarchy if going for domination, or to republic if going for the SR. It's been a different story on deity domination games, since the beakers or gold I need to catch up on tech demand republic or democracy at least until I'm ready for war. If you're only going to switch once, my take is that religious saves you a few turns, expands your borders early, and gets you cheap happiness builds - I'd take the science trait if going for a peaceful win, and militaristic if going for domination, both coupled with industrious.

Arrian, I would like to take credit for persevering with the mediocre starting position, but the nearby river and population booster in my capital happened to fit my predetermined needs, so I kept on playing. That I was able to build so many cities without fighting and despite the so-so start is more noteworthy, and geography helped here... making the start position not as bad as it seems.

THE GL strat shouldn't fail to get you one early wonder or another, although it may not be worth the effort in different circumstances. It was fun because I'd never done it before, just like I loved the early guerrilla warfare in my first Aztec domination game.

[alva]

btw: just took another look at your preset stategie:
Be carefull, 'caus at the moment your only able to build hoover in the Thebes area.
Just thought I'd mention it, one of those things that's easily forgotten about

[jshelr]

My advice is WIN THIS ONE, it was a perfect start While the plains start location may not seem ideal, the choke point looks like a huge advantage on Deity. I think the GL coup is another fantastic win for you. It would never have entered my head that I could even dream of getting the GL. When you get education, you should have enough gold to carry you to the turn, and then ToE is a realistic possibility given the AI's need for Nationalism.

Will you use ToE to generate tech for trades or will you try to sprint to the finish?? If you sprint, I'm sure you will be worried that they will catch you. IMO, you are going to need a third miracle on top of GL and ToE to win this one. Maybe you might consider using the ToE to beeline out one branch and then turn off the research slider. Try to trade the advanced tech you've got for lots of other tech as they research it. Meantime, continue to hoard gold and then buy tech all the way to near the finish, particularly if you can continue build some gold backlog to make a short sprint on your own to the last SS tech. The odds are still long that you will make it. But maybe you can encourage the boys and girls to get into WWIII with each other during the modern era. Good luck!!

My question, which I've asked before, is why the focus on Hoovers?? The reason I ask is that I've had RR and factories up and running for lots of turns while waiting for Hoovers to build, paying a "penalty" each turn relative to having built a coal plant in each city. For a small civ particularly, it strikes me that the penalty adds up to more than the cost of the coal plants, although everyone seems to disagree.

[alva]

@Jshelr: for one thing, theres denial
Imagine a great/uge civ on deity with hoover

[Txurce]

Alva, cranking up my science would seem to be the ideal approach. Unfortunately, this is my reality: I'm in a monarchy with a 20% luxury rate, due to a couple of selfish cities, including the monstrous Heliopolis. The best that I can do under these circumstances is to research MT in 27 turns, with a deficit of 18gpt, and my FP would be finished before then.

I am counting on the fact that no one else will research MT immediately after education. This should not only give me the edge for Bach, but also allow me to trade the tech for others, now that I'm no longer benefiting from the GL, and just about everyone can out-research me. As a result, I am researching it in 35 turns, running a surfeit of 16gpt. My hope is that I'll get the wonder, a tech to trade, and have amassed enough gold to buy more. (I intend to build the wonder in Giza, by the way. As soon as I finish the aqueduct, I'll switch to a palace build, and then grow the city much as I did Heliopolis.)

I intend to build Hoover's in Thebes, my only river city other than the capital, where I can do a palace pre-build. Do you see a reason why only having one option is a problem?

My stats as of 10AD are #6 in size and mfg. goods, #8 in gnp, and #7 in population. This is in keeping with my shaky cultural status, as seen below:

[alva]

Couldn't you put in 1 or 2 entertainers in your capitol: therfore needing less of the luxury slider and creating more resources for your science?
To me having 1 size 12 city seems like a waste, if you need to adjust your slider for that pupose only. Maybe get it down to size 9 or 10 might actually save you money IMHO
could you save a post? eugh make it the other way around, will you and post a save

[Catt]

I for one don't think the start is all that bad. Plains with a river is a pretty good surrounding terrain, at least for the early game. What surprises me more is the dearth of hills and mountains - not a lot of easy shields in your corner of the world. Is this a 5 Billion map?

What is more impressive to me than the start position is the reminder that Txurce is playing on a Mac, and therefore on 1.21f. My Deity wins (even the few under 1.29f) have all been the result of aggressive, offensive expansion - and have been the result of hurting my foes more than enlarging my own productive power. If Txurce pulls off the (largely) peaceful Deity win under 1.21's technology regime - all the more impressive.

I am enjoying these public experiments with Deity -- I am also jealous of the time you're getting to play all these games in rapid succession.

Catt

[Txurce]

Jshelr, I agree that my start is oddly suitable for my strategy and goals. Plugging the chokepoint slowed the AI settlement onslaught, but even more meaningful is the chokepoint itself, which pretty much meant that only the Romans would even try to pass through it. Even better than that is the Romans being the runt of the AI litter on my continent. Defending myself shouldn't be a big deal at any point, which means I can focus on research (and keep the Romans happy with older tech).

I think I can get the TOE with a well-timed prebuild, well-stocked gold reserves, and researching the democracy branch. If I do get it, I'll trade atomic theory for the techs I don't have, and gpt to finance maxed research. I intend to hang onto electronics to try getting Hoover's, but could easily be beaten to it. And then I expect to do exactly what you advise: turn off the research, and buy my way into the space race.

Why bother with Hoover's? I may not, because I only need major production in maybe four cities to build the SS, and don't expect to need to crank out a major military. One reason to go for it in this game is that it keeps it out of the AI's hands, but in all honesty, I don't know how much their building it would hurt me in a space race. You raise an excellent point in terms of the penalty I'll pay waiting for Hoover's, when I could have built coal plants... but in this game, I wouldn't build the coal plants until after I'd finished most of the essential buildings. I could be wrong about the balance sheet here, but my gut says that putting up cathedrals, libraries and universities should precede coal plants, even though the plants would speed the builds. What do you think?

[jshelr]

Too close a call for a doctrinaire answer. The total construction time for both needed happiness buildings and factory/utility construction would be lower if the factory/utilities were done first -- provided the natives are not too restless!! If you have the lux and pop is low enough so everyone is smiling, you know what to do.

[Txurce]

Catt, I'm lucky both to have the time to play these games, and a fresh enough goal to make me want to start this one right after finishing the last one (which took forever). My map is a standard one: 4 billion years, right? The lack of hills didn't matter in despotism, but will in monarchy - which is why I'm planning to build Bach in Giza, where there are both hills and cows.

Alva, I just checked your suggestion: if I put an entertainer in Heliopolis and Giza, and so drop the luxury slider to zero, I could speed my research to 23 turns. This is a good idea in general, now that Heliopolis is no longer cranking on the GL... but not for Giza, where I plan on starting the prebuild in six turns - an entertainer there would cost me two shields. More to the point, MT in 23 turns still doesn't beat out the FP build. I guess I could slow the prebuild so that research catches up, but the production output in Giza will soon far surpass that of the FP city.

In the end, I think I'll have the research edge on Bach, and will benefit in research sooner from an FP asap. But you could well be right... so here's a save of the game at this point!

[Txurce]

The Greeks want tribute - Egypt wants a Golden Age

By 150AD I was a republic, close to building the FP in Pi-Ramesses, and had Giza building a palace in preparation for a happiness wonder. Most of my WCs were upgraded to knights, so when the Greeks understandably asked for tribute, we were at war. I softened up Rhodes with knights, then sent in two WCs, and - bang! - I was in a GA. A happiness wonder looked very doable all of a sudden. As in my other deity games, I took advantage of a superior enemy’s isolated cities. Although the Greeks had a surprisingly large number of hoplites in each nearby city, they only had longbowmen for offense. My knights divided into two battle groups, and took all four Greek cities on my borders and an island on my east coast to boot.

Back to the tech race

I now had 18 cities, was third in size, and second for the moment in mfg. goods and gnp. This looked like enough to potentially generate the production I would need to win. And, although I missed the Chapel, I had Bach's. But despite the two wonders, my slow temple building resulted in a mediocre culture standing.

The AI was also pulling away from me in tech - why are those other countries so smart? - but two factors kept me close. First, I researched music theory and the printing press, which allowed me to trade for some tech. Secondly, I lucked into an encounter with a Zulu galley off my coast, which allowed me to trade communications to the seven other civs. (Zululand was the tech leader, but the four civs on the other continent were all pretty even.) Working against me was that I could get very little value for my two extra luxuries, or none at all: it seemed like those who could afford them already had them. Also problematic was the discovery that I possessed no saltpeter.

The Persians' turn to do me a favor

I wasn't sure if I would need the saltpeter - I could trade for nationalism at some point, and theoretically survive with infantry and artillery. But the Persians - the biggest civ at the time - were growing increasingly disenchanted with me for no reason, so I paid for military tradition, and sent a settler off to build a city on a bare patch of desert between Greece and Rome with saltpeter. There was saltpeter near one of the three Persian cities at the bottom of my land mass as well, and I started building cities in the jungle toward them.

Just as my borders reached theirs - and no gunpowder - the Persians declared war on me around 550 AD, and burned down my two new towns. They had cavalry and musketmen (reinforced by riflemen) against my knights. My edge was local superiority in numbers again, because the Persian mainland was somewhere offshore. I killed off their cavalry in the jungle, and took their three cities, the last with a cavalry upgrade against riflemen after snagging their saltpeter. Despite troops on ships off my coast, the Persians paid for a peace treaty.

The war gave me my five new dye luxuries - enough to finally expect a decent return on my homegrown stuff. It also gave me a Great Leader. Yes! It is now 600 AD, I have two sources of saltpeter and coal to build railroads. My gold reserves are also gone and there's a long way to go, but in the flush of my sudden gains, I now feel I have the advantage.

[alva]

Great stuff ,

but you could by a PC next time? I tried to open your safe wich off-course didn't work.???? then I rememberd you are working on a mac

PS: you're game is making me want to start a new game of my own. Don't know if that's such a good thing tho'

[Txurce]

Alva, I thought Mac saves could be opened by PCs. Does it download as a ".sav" file? If not, retitling it might help. (That's what I did to open PC files.

[alva]

nope, can't open it.
"not a valid same game" , well, something in that area

I'll try downing it again, see what happens

[Txurce]

Catching up with two wonders

The AI's tag team (Greece, Persia and Zululand) had enough of a research lead that it made sense for me to turn off the research and buy the techs as they were researched. The dye luxuries helped to pay for the ungodly amounts the AI demanded for steam power, medicine, electricity and the scientific method. (I made some money back by selling these techs to the slower AI civs.) I had been building a palace for the TOE, but now just used the GL in 830 for guaranteed success. I traded atomic theory for every tech I didn’t have plus tons of gold, and kept electronics for myself, as the palace build became a Hoover build.

Over the next 15 turns, the Aztecs were swallowed up, I fell less than a turn behind in tech, and found myself with no oil again. On the other hand, Hoover was mine in 990, with Egypt first in size and mfg. goods, in the black despite maxing out on science. (Note to jshelr: having only just traded for industrialization, I finished Hoover before I would have completed very many coal plants.)

Research in the modern era

By 1130, when I entered the modern era, three of my cities had flipped – one a recently captured Persian city, the other two a formerly Greek island city and my saltpeter city far away on the Greek border. Only my pride was affected, as the cities had little value, and I regressed to third in size, although still first in mfg. goods. I had also fallen behind in tech, as Persia, Greece and Zululand traded the last industrial and first modern techs among themselves. (I took advantage of the higher prices for techs by in turn selling them to the Babs and Americans.) And while I had discovered oil on my own territory, I now found myself with no aluminum.

I resorted to my standard space-race strategy, and researched ecology right after computers. I lost the race for the SETI wonder, but researched ecology in 1275. This put me in the driver’s seat for the rest of the game. I traded it in various forms, and received fission, space flight, aluminum, a net 575 gold, and 10 gpt.

I was still down satellites, but I doubted the AI would beeline for space as well as me. The game was playing out as I had expected at this stage. My defense consisted of four infantry, three MI, twenty cavalry, and eight bombers and destroyers – thinner than I preferred, but not unduly worrisome, given my unusually secure borders.

In 1315, I lost the UN by one turn, but researched synthetic fibers, and traded it for satellites, superconductor, spices, 1150 gold, and 150 gpt. I cannot stress enough how much the human player benefits from the AI’s hunger for new tech and the rigidity of its research pattern… combined with the AI’s refusal to sell to itself beneath a certain price. I started building the ship then, with only the laser to research, and launched in 1380. A postmortem revealed that the Greeks had completed (and started) only five of the ten SS parts.

Conclusions

This game had a couple of factors work in my favor. First, I could have lost the GL to any AI civ that focused on it, despite all my efforts. Even bigger was the geographical advantage that allowed me to expand and secure my borders so easily. A third was that only the Aztecs were eliminated, and no one civ pulled away. On the other hand, keeping up on research was tougher than usual, because the AI had almost no wars to distract it.

In the end, I was able to follow my pregame strategy almost to the letter, and win a fairly competitive space race. It came down to maximizing tech with the Great Library, FP, and a happiness wonder in the early part of the game, scrambling to stay close enough to get the TOE in the industrial era, and then taking advantage of the AI’s patterns in the modern era. Spending an unusual amount of time looking for trading opportunities was critical. So was having a worker factory in operation the entire game.

That said, I suffered from low population and culture. I wonder if I should have used my workers to irrigate for a while and knock up my pop, or built granaries ahead of other improvements, rather than later. (I doubt the latter, as I needed all that other infrastructure.) As for culture, I could have built some temples earlier perhaps, and tried for a couple of other wonders, just to build up my rating. It didn’t really matter this time, but in different circumstances those flips could have been crippling.

Interestingly, in this case my builder strategy would have worked even better than my domination strat for a domination win. On the other hand, I still don't know how I could win via domination in a game where the SR is an option.

What is most notable, though, is that this was a deity victory with a builder strategy – just two short defensive wars – and no ancient-era warmongering to expand. As in my domination games, this goes to show that players can win on deity with strategies that are not beyond a beginner to this level.

(For some reason, my .jpg file appears as a download, rather than an image. It's not very revealing - my civ a turn before the end.)

[alva]

nice work indeed
so, on to the next project??
btw: if you do a next project, maybe even keep a closer notebook/diary: sort of like a tutorial/guideline book

Edit: solved

[Txurce]

I'll try to keep a more detailed logbook (or diary) next time, but I'm not sure there's a point when the actual moves aren't that crucial. This game was unusual in that I was able to stick to my pregame strategy throughout, and it all went more or less like clockwork. The only meaningful variable was how I made use of the chokehold, and that broke down to 1) finding it and 2) blocking it with two warriors before any settlers slipped through. I played everyhting else pretty much like everyone else would, I think... which is part of the point I'm making with these games.

[ducki]

Very impressive.

I recently 'graduated' to Warlord and the map generator has been very cruel, so I'm getting frustrated - for example, my latest attempt ended up with me starting on the edge of a desert, 10-15 moves away from a 3-wide chokepoint with Germany and England on the other side, and I had horses, iron, 5 silks, a gem, and 3 gold... but the silks were off in barbarian-land across the desert, and there was not a single river or lake on the whole continent...
which meant I was unable to irrigate anything...
which mean my towns all hit about 3 or 4 citizens and became Zero Growth. Ugh. Painful.


But your game is encouraging. Maybe I'll make it to Deity some day. Right before Civ XXVIII gets released, probably, by Sid's great-great-great grandson.

[Txurce]

Ducki, why don't you build your towns spaced more closely together, so that the pop limit won't matter as much? This will allow you to build your way to the silks, as well as generate shields and gold. The only downside is corruption, but that can be addressed by building the FP sooner (or bouncing the palace, although that's more complicated to do right).

[ducki]

Well, I built at the silks mostly because there's enough desert between there and the nearest town for 4 villages even spaced 3 tiles apart...and it is [u]pure[/b] desert...no water for irrigation, no fishes, no nothing... plus, I wanted the silks to try to trade and catch up in the tech tree. It's just a rotten map, IMO, and until I'm ready to take over some territory past my choke-point, it's a long hard road to get enough settlers built up for that many mostly useless 'bridge towns'.

Maybe I'm just not very good at the game...entirely possible.

[punkbass2000]

I would like to propose that the GL is entirely unnecessary and that the ToE needs to be the penultimate goal.

[Txurce]

Punkbass, you have the floor.