A Deity challenge

[CharonJr]

Hmm, to be honest I am not able to find any switch for showing/hiding file name extensions

CharonJr

edit: nm, found it, must have overlooked it first

[Crossfire]

Well, on my first try I made it to 1395 AD. I had 4 cities and was sided with all the Catholic factions including Gilgamesh and had survived a short attack by Pacal. I was pretty put out by how early everyone got Emancipation and suffered some unhappiness until I researched that far. I was pretty far behind in research (about 4-5 techs) but I was slowly catching up. That's when Gilgamesh switched to Islam and attacked. My knights and longbows didn't stand a chance against his SoD of artillery and infantry. Shaka then piled on to insure my death.

I was at 60-70% research rate most of the time and I don't honestly see how to survive in this game except by building lots more military. But then this would insure you lose anyway because you are going to get further behind in tech and sooner or later you face a superior force. Maybe with a weaker neighbor it would be possible to make it to the end of the game, but...

[CharonJr]

Hi,

after my problems with the file I did not start the game yet, but from what I have seen the key to deity is getting the AIs to war each other and try to grab some spoils from the looser if possible.

Will give this on a shot later today I hope.

CharonJr

[CharonJr]

Some observations/thoughts from the screenshot:

It looks like we are in southern half of the map (due to the jungle to the north).

From the sea that seems to be 2NW, 2N and 2NE1E of our settler we might be located right on a landbridge or a peninsular. Due to the amount of water in the south I lean toward peninsular.

Either way, our settler seems to be in a decent blocking position which might enable us to get land in the south without the AIs being able to get there early (peninsular-case).

If we are on a landbridge trying to spread as fast as possible in all directions should be the only way to get 4-5 cities before the AIs are there.

I like the settlers starting position on the plains hill (2F 2H), with 2 floodplains and lots of trees around, but the sea to the north might be even better if there are 2+ seafood-tiles there.

Due to this I think that I will move my warrior NE first to take a look then either move the settler 1N or settle in place.

But when I look at the ressources in the BFC I tend towards settling in place due to the ivory (for a faster worker since it seems like we only get 1 bonus hammer for each 4 hammers we produc-> 3F 4H for settling in place). Getting 3F 4H would take 1 culture pop before the ivory would be in the BFC again.

Ressources in the initial/1N BFC:

Grassland Corn: 3F (+2F) - River? think not
Grassland Cow: 3F (+1F +2H)
Coastal Fish: 1F 2C (+3F)
Plains River Ivory: 1F 2H 1C (+1H +1C)

The goodie-hut will be popped by culture.

The initial warrior will explore north, a later warrior will be send south to confirm the peninsular/landbridge theory.

For techs I am drawn between Mining->BW for early chopping or AH for those cows.

First build will most likely be a worker. Fishing boat next or a warrior (jsut played 1 game on epic, will have to see how fast my city will gorn/when I need a warrior to prevent unrest).

I will make some calculations in order to look for the most strong/faster start and then finally decide, but at the moment it feels like settle in place, go BW first, get a worker then a fishing boat.

Some questions concerning epic:

Is the city growth rate changed ? How many food for the first growth, how many more for the next ones ?

Does anybody know the research times for Mining, BW and AH in epic ?

And how many hammers are needed for a worker, settler and fishing boat.

How long does it take to chop a wood for how many H (30?) ?

CharonJr

[Fleme]

The key to this one is to get friendly with Gilgamesh so you don't have to deal with his stacks all the time. I managed to do it all the way to the AD's but I was so far behind that I decided to start again. I haven't done that yet but will do as soon as I get time for it. I wasn't the last in score since the AI's picked on 2 of the weaklings but all in all I wasn't in a good way by any means.

In my second attempt I will try to get to Writing fast so I can run specialists (all city spots can support) and then work my way towards catapults. I managed to muster a stack capable of attacking but it was to no avail since I was way too slow to catapults.

[Robert]

Originally posted by CharonJr


Hmm, does not work for me, neither under Vista nor XP (installed Civ there in order to try it).

Or is there any special way to rename it ? I am not given the option to chance file extensions when renaming, so I just added ".CivBeyondSwordSave" to the file name.

CharonJr

edit: manged to fix it via "DOS-mode" - the files was named .CivBeyondSwordSave.civbeyondswordsave - but somehow I missed the option to change the extension in Windows. Any idea how to do it under Windows ?

Just must enable extensions in the windows explorer.
If you go to extra-map options you can select something like 'show extenions' on the 2nd tab somewhere. Then it'll show you the extensions, so you can edit them.

[CharonJr]

Played up to 2100 BC here.

I think we might be able to get up to 8 cities in this one:



But I doubt that I will be able to do it since I got a random event lowering my Gilgamesh's relations towards me by 1



CharonJr

edit: Gilgamesh declared war in 1150 BC, game over. But will try again with a pretty similar tactic, maybe leave away the city in the NW and hope that Pacal and Gilgamesh will clash over their border up there...

[Crossfire]

In my first try I chose not to challenge Gilgamesh for land and that kept me from getting any negative modifiers with him until he switched religions. I was Friendly with Isabelle and Jaoa and most of the other civs were pleased with me right up until the moment of my death. I may pull a save up and see if I can survive longer if I switch religions along with Gil. I had 4 religions in all my cities which helped with happiness and research rates. I will also try to be more aggressive at getting some more cities in another try and see if that can make a difference. I am suspect about that though because each city is a huge drain until after you get currency and code.

[Fleme]

Oh wow Charon that's ballsy. In my game I focused on getting the capital + 3 cities on the peninsula up and running as fast as possible and that alone left my economy at 30% research so I don't see any possibility of you making 8 cities before the AI sails to our peninsula and sets up shop.

My belief is that if you are to expand north, it needs to have a strong garrison to go along with it and the city to preferably be on a hill. Keeping Washington is easy since you can block the three ways leading to it by a simple guard of Axe+Spear and have a mobile garrison of 2 axes+ spear as a backup which you can move to whichever spot needs reinforcing. This allows one to build in relative peace but the downside to this is that you will be stuck with the 4 cities you can fit in the peninsula.

I noticed that the cities Gilgamesh had bordering me had relatively weak garrisons (assortment of 5 units, no more) but due to his cultural defense I wouldn't dream of taking them and that's why I reckon it'd be a smart move to go for cats if you wish to challenge Gil early on.

How far did you make it, Crossfire?

[Crossfire]

Look a few posts up for a quick post-mortem Fleme. I made it to 1395AD which I thought was pretty good. I am trying again as we speak with an added city to the nw of my start spot. The only way to do this is to do a settler first start while you research BW but I am not sure if this puts you too far in the hole in the long run. Time will tell.

[CharonJr]

Well, replayed till 200 BC and I am still alive, friendly/pleased with all my catholic breathen Gilgamesh is even friendly.



Left out the NWmost city and only added 1 on the entrance to the mainland and 3 on the peninsula. I might be able to culture-flip Pacals city to the west in the long run, which would give me the 6 cities needed for some of the good stuff



Techwise there is still some room for improvement, but I got a GA from Music and will start a Golden Age soon, should get 2 GS during it



And this is my Washington at the moment, trying to let it grow a bit more before launching the Golden Age.



Will try to continue this one tomorrow.

CharonJr

[CharonJr]

Originally posted by Crossfire
Look a few posts up for a quick post-mortem Fleme. I made it to 1395AD which I thought was pretty good. I am trying again as we speak with an added city to the nw of my start spot. The only way to do this is to do a settler first start while you research BW but I am not sure if this puts you too far in the hole in the long run. Time will tell.

I went worker, workboat, settler for the first city (NW) and had no real problems getting it (even started barracks in order to let the city grow one more time).

Unless Gilgamesh is very aggressivly settling towards you, this should be fast enough (was somewhere between turn 40-50 IIRC), but he had a settler aound soon after I settled the NW spot.

CharonJr

[Crossfire]

In my tries Gilgamesh settles next to the cows and corn on about turn 35. That means I need to go settler first if I want a chance to settle there. You seem to have had a lucky go at this one.

I have played 3 times and gotten killed in all 3, earlier each try.

I assume you are whipping like crazy with all those farms. Unless you have tons of military hiding somewhere you had better start building some soon.

[Fleme]

Good show, Charon. Quite brave to do that with next to no army (unless I'm missing it)

[CharonJr]

Hi,

yip, no army, I am relying on diplomacy at the moment. I have no chance vs a determined attack by one of the big guys anyway, but I will get some more troops once I have my 2 GP garms set up decently to deter the smaller non-christian civs.

My main security is being surrounded by my beathen in faith at the moment. Shaka is close, but pleased with me, mainly for him I will step up my defences soon.

Just took a quick look, settled New York in 2750 BC (turn 25/50?).

CharonJr