Help me beat Demigod

[1889]

This is the best I have ever done on Demigod, but this is where I usually get into trouble.

A successful war against Rome gave me plenty of land up north. Just finished a war with France and got land in the Esat, but they had no technology to give. None of these wars produced any MGLs.

What is my next move? I'm thinking that with enough units and some allies I can take some of the Hittites best cities and some nice wonders.

This is with the AU 1.07 Mod. Also a pretty cool random map.

[Aqualung71]

Can you post the start?

[1889]

This is the only one I transfered from the old computer.

I hope you have more insight for me. Your tip about more workers made all the difference in the world to my early game.

I keep trying to get population up like you said as well, but I need such a large army I don't think I can afford to change governments. I'm still in Despotism in 130 AD, so towns are just as good as cities.

[joncnunn]

If you have a large army, few size 7+ cities, and a nearby oppoent, try Fedualism.

Especally on the AU Mod which features an extremely low corruption/waste level for Fedualism.

Low WW govts will not collapse the govt.

[Modo44]

Builder's perspective:

• Leaving the Game Forest near the capital looks very weird. That lost you a lot of food, considerably slowing down the REX. Same goes for leaving Forests around, when you have Hills and Mountains.
• Almost no Granaries?
• Almost no Courthouses?
• The production penalty of Despotism is killing your growth, production, and cashflow. Get out of it ASAP. Even a Republic could pay upkeep for that number of units.
• You have too few Workers, even counting the Slaves. Especially with that Jungle taking a large part of the empire, you should be using twice as many IMO. You have 3 Slaves fortified in Avignon, for no apparent reason.
• Your Workers are clearing Jungle, when there are Grassland tiles with only Roads on them. It's usually best to do the quicker jobs first, so tiles can be used at maximum production capacity, and cities can grow ASAP.

[1889]

This is all very useful.

I got through Emperor as a builder, but it never worked for me on Demigod. I finally decided to try something completely different and be a warmonger.

Not an easy transition as you can see.

[vmxa1]

I have no experience with the mod, but I would echo getting out of depotism. At demi, I would opt for republic as you want to NOT have to have MP's.

It is tempting to get the mp boost, but you will need so many more units. You want to be able to take troops out of safe cities and send them to danger spots or into combat, not pay for them to do guard duty.

Not to be mean, but if you need pointers on workers, you should reconsider playing on Demi.

[1889]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Not to be mean, but if you need pointers on workers, you should reconsider playing on Demi.

That was kinda mean, but I will not reconsider!

I will attack the Hittites in the west now.

If things go well I will post another save.

If things go badly I will edit my posts to make you look silly.

[vmxa1]

Best of luck.

[joncnunn]

My natural inclientations are towards builder, but I think that the Vickings are best played as a war mongler in the ancient and midldle ages.

They do have the Bersker as a UU.

I strongly agree that forest around the capital should have been chopped early on to hurry things like Baracks and Graneries.

And yes, clearing jungle is generally a realtively low priority, especally for a non-industrious civ. Improve the existing grassland before creating more.

[vmxa1]

Ok here is some concrete input:

1- Chatres is roiting and building a Pike with no barracks. It only makes one shiled, so this is doubly bad.

Almost never make units other than warriors/archers without a barracks. If a unit is going to take 30 turns, forget it.

2- You have a bunch of 2 man worker teams doing jungle. These are either 2 natives or 2 slaves and a native so effectively the same. I did not look to see what they could be doing that is better, but if you deem clearing a jungle important, use a gang.

It is better to have a 8 man job (or what every the manpower) done by 8 workers than 4 teams of 2. This is because you get the job done sooner and get the improvement now. Yes in 4 tunrs the same amount of work is done, but you got the benefit of the improvement for three turns and are better off.

3- why build walls? They can be useful, but it is usually not a good thing and surely only in a town that is in action. Odense is not one of them.

4- Odense switch the citizen on the hill to the dye so it can grow. Change barracks to temple, it is in no shape to build troops right now. You are near your limit and are not currently at war anyway.

5- Antium making a Pike, but only makes one shield.

6- Birka making a court, but it is rather small and not that corrupted and may be able to do something better, even if it just to generate some gold. Maybe another worker.

7- Trondheim has an entertainer and it does not need it and should be on the mine. This save one turn on the pike.

8- Aarthus switch the market to a temple. This is needed because it will grow in two turns and be unhappy.

9- Oslo move citizen from 7 to the mined BG.

10- Stavenger move citizen from forest to mine, it is not growing otherwise.

Now maybe all would not agree with everything I have said, but it does point out the inattention to detail. This is very dangerous at levels above Emperor.

Lots of tiles have forest that should have been chopped early on and many cities do not have a single mine. Shields and food are the tools of victory.

It is going to be very hard to over come not using workers and citizen to a high advantge at Demi. It can be done, but will require great tactics and trading skills.

I understand how you can get to this point and not switch out of despotism when under pressure, but it has to be done and soon.
More micromanaging would have relieved some of the pressure.

You will need to get two units to each city of size 3 or better before the switch to minimize loss of production.

Most of the civs have 4 techs more than you and have knights. If you can trade for it, do so otherwise that is what I would research. The KT is built, so they may trade it now.

Again good luck.

[joncnunn]

Overall, at Demigod, attention to detail is extremely important in the epic game, even with stock rules.

With the AU mod, it is even more so.

It is also important on any mod to know how this affects things.

With the AU mod 1.07:

Fedualism is much stronger than normal [Minimum corruption] This will result in mimum build times for units and improvements.

Republic is stronger than normal if you have < 12 cities that area size 7+ [18 free units but only 2 f.s. for medium size cities],

Democracy is stronger than normal, but doesn't benifit as much due to the timing, making it even less used when coming from Republic when not religious. Democracy still looks like a good pick for those that were warmongling under Monarchy /' Fedualism during the early middle ages and now intend to develop their enlarged empire in the late middle ages.

Communism does not have the SPHQ, instead Fascism does. Weakening communism & strengthening Fascism.

Too many to list unit changes, the most important ones for the Vikings are that Curraghs need 2 MP to enter sea and are prohibited from entering ocean and Galleys need 2 MP to enter ocean.

[Modo44]

One thing that helps a lot: accept the fact, that giving in to some demands can be the difference between a game lost, and a game won. This is important early on, when the AI is running around with way too many spare units.

[vmxa1]

7- Trondheim has an entertainer and it does not need it and should be on the mine. This save one turn on the pike.

Whoops I mistook content for happy, so this needs some action on the lux slider to get the entertainer working again. The point is the same and that is you do not want to have use entertainers in the capitol in the middle ages. It is fine once you get to metro size.

I also forgot to mention moving the taxman(?) to the mined bg in Chartres. It probably does not matter as I can see a few civs are looking to take you out and they are coming with Knights, so it could get rough.

I dislike not having any two move units at this juncture. I would have like to see some horses. It is a lot easy to upgrade horses, than to build knights from scratch, especially in a pinch.

You need the movement to help fight fires and come to the aid of cities.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by vmxa1
It is better to have a 8 man job (or what every the manpower) done by 8 workers than 4 teams of 2.

sorry to drop in and side-track things here, but this is something that's been in the back of my little mind for a while.
i always used to stack all the workers i could, to get a job finished in the minimum possible time.
then i noticed that this isn't really efficient.
eg.
some jobs might take 8 turns for one worker
with two workers, the job often takes 3 turns --- bonus!
now, to get that job done in 2 turns will require four workers.

iow with 1, 4, or 8 workers on the same tile, a job takes eight worker-turns
with 2 workers on that tile, the job takes only six worker-turns

so if i split the workers up and use smaller gangs, i get a higher overall efficiency

did you take this into account in your post above?
do you normally take this into account in-game or do you just stack them 'til you get down to one turn per job?