Demigod - play-a-long strategy

[lethe]

Inspired by MS wonderful thread Emperor games C3C: how to improve your skills I thought it was time for the same thing, but for Demigod. Patch is 1.15b

First out is Shogun Tokugawa on a large map. It's archipelago, 70% water, sedentary barbarians, 5 billion years, wet and temperate. As you can see a somewhat cooked map, but it should still provide us with a good challenge as we make the leap from emperor to demigod. It's now the AI starts getting some real bonuses.

There are 9 opponents, though our backward people don't know who they are.

There are no additional conditions for winning, all victories except wonder are enabled.

Edit: I am a dofus, so start position moved to next post.

Download the right save here: demi2.sav

[lethe]

So, this is what our starting position looks like:

[anarchie]

(Out of context)

[lethe]

This start position has a nasty surprise that probably makes it very, very much harder than it appears.

It was the one I originally posted, and some of you might want to do something out of a river and two cows. But it's not as paradisical as it looks.

[DrSpike]

Which start are we supposed to play? I recommend you play till at least 2000BC before posting saves for comparison games.

[lethe]

demi2.sav, the one I linked in the top post.

Sorry bout the confusion. I'm blonde, what can I say.

And I did play it to about 750bc before posting. But it wasn't until 450bc when I built the GL I realized that it wasn't a paradise start. Well, as usual I just got to screw up once in the beginning. It's a good luck charm or something.

[DrSpike]

Ok thanks. Now I have to choose between this game and the one in MS's thread.

[vmxa1]

To bad you made it a large map. Why are there only 9 civs for a large?

What is the demigod save, is it a new game or a tweak to demi2?

[lethe]

No, the demigod save is the first one I posted. It's just there if someone got interested, as there was a brief discussion about it. (Which is now completely nonsensical since I edited my original post.)

I vary map size alot, this time it's large. And I underpopulated it by 2 to ease the transition from emperor to demigod, as I was hoping to drag a few more over the chasm.

Feel free to chime in with an interesting start position. (In a couple of days, I still got a long way to go on this one.)

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by lethe

I vary map size alot, this time it's large. And I underpopulated it by 2 to ease the transition from emperor to demigod, as I was hoping to drag a few more over the chasm.

I was presuming you felt that less civs would make it easier, so I was really asking what reasons you had for that.

I am not sure if having less will make it easier or not. If it gives you more room, then it probably does. If you still have the same number of civs on your land mass as you would have, then it could back fire.

It could let some other civ become a KAI. I guess it would slow down the research a tad, but that will not be a big factor.

So I am just wondering how others see using fewer or more than the normal number of civs in a given game or map.

[lethe]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I was presuming you felt that less civs would make it easier, so I was really asking what reasons you had for that.

In general I feel that fewer civs makes the earlier parts of the game easier, up to the late middle ages, while it makes the industrial and modern eras harder. Which imho is just the right thing,

It might just be my playing style though.

[vmxa1]

If you run into a KAI amd you probably will, the late game will be harder and tedious. Actually, I am starting to feel that the game gets tedious with Steam. Laying rails is very tedious.

[bvoncranium]

100th post by lethe:
In general I feel that fewer civs makes the earlier parts of the game easier, up to the late middle ages, while it makes the industrial and modern eras harder. Which imho is just the right thing,
It might just be my playing style though.

Congrats on attaining Warlord poster status lethe.

[Aqualung71]

Well I downloaded the original start position and played last night to around 400AD....as expected, miles behind most AI's in tech.

I can't really go and play the new start cos now I've seen most of the map. So what was the nasty surprise - no iron?

[lethe]

The new start isn't on the same map, so that shouldn't be a problem.

And yes, an early nasty surprise usually means missing out on the iron sweepstakes. I guess I could as well have said it.