While it might seem unduly fast for those not used to Deity, the tech pace of this game was already close to the Middle Ages in 1000BC. Those of you familiar with 1.21f Deity tech prices can remember when the Industrial Age was usually reached before the changeover in years to AD. Compared to that, this wasn't a fast tech pace at all. Here was my map in 1000BC, with the national borders between civs fairly well set for the next few centuries.
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This is just about all the land I would end up getting in this game. It looks like I can't possibly compete with the AI civs, but in reality what I had was more than enough to win. Notice that the absence of any civs in the southwest corner of the map (where the starting positions for the missing civs would have been) is allowing Rome and Egypt to expand to very large sizes. Combine that with Egypt's possession of the Pyramids on this pangea map, and you have a recipe for trouble. But I couldn't do anything about that, and since this Epic ruled out aggressive military action (at least in spirit, and I planned to stick to it) I was content to make the best with what I had.
I founded both Samarra and Lagash in 950BC, one was a fishing town and the other claimed some desert tiles in the north that wouldn't be productive until the advent of railroads. It's a good thing that the central part of my territory was so fertile, because the outlying areas were not. A series of turns passed in which nothing happened except that the AI civs began to outpace me in technology, as they always do in the early stages of the game. In 775BC all of the other civs jumped into the Middle Ages; I was still Construction and Currency away. I also managed to purchase contact with India from Greece for 74g on that turn. I had known India was there from the map for some time, but there was no way to get a galley there and find them first myself. India was stuck on its own island separate from the main pangea, and way back in tech. I mean WAY back. For most of the game, I would trade India outdated techs in exchange for a luxury. Needless to say, Gandhi wasn't going to have much of an influence on the game anytime soon.
If you look at the above map, you'll see that Ashur fails to claim the horses in its 21-tile radius. In order to secure that supply of horses, I founded an overlapped city of Kish two tiles away to grab them. (710BC) Nippur was founded in the northern desert in 650BC and that was the last city I would found myself. After deliberately building a road to Egypt, I was able to trade them my only wines + 71g for Currency. Getting big bucks from your luxuries is the one advantage to being small at least. After my gpt payments wore off, I traded 120g + 14gpt to Egypt for Construction and entered the Middle Ages, drawing Monotheism as usual as my scientific freebie tech. I have no idea why Egypt was able to offer better tech prices than commercial Greece, but I was willing to go with the cheapest deal. I was now only one tech down (Feudalism), but unfortunately had no chance to broker around my free Monotheism as everyone already had it. Here is the map from 530BC:
The minimap shows the world in full for the first time. Take a look at just how sad my military is at this point: a couple of warriors, 0 spears, many cities left completely undefended. I was running on the edge in this game, pushing infrastructure at all costs at the expense of defense. It was a gamble to be sure, but playing peacefully in Deity often involves running this kind of risk in order to stay competitive. My goal was to build better defenders when I ran out of city improvements to build in cities. But for the moment, I was completely wide open to attack.
Fortunately no attack was forthcoming. I discovered The Republic in 430BC after my 40-turn min science research came due and revolted immediately. Thanks to the religious nature of Babylon, I was out of anarchy in only one turn - something that was highly refreshing after playing a number of non-religious civs for a while. Also note in the 530BC picture that Uruk was working on a harbor, which when completed in 370BC opened up trade routes to all of the other civs. I sent my excess incense + 121g + 14gpt to Rome for Feudalism. A short while later I hooked up my horses, and sent them to Rome as well along with 211g + 15gpt for Theology. (230BC) This again put me down one tech to the AI civs, and in excellent position for the game. The research pattern for the AI civs was completely wacky in this game; Alex reached Astronomy before he researched Engineering! Very, very strange. I could see this because in 130BC I had traded 34gpt + 201g to Greece for Education. That's a lot of techs to be buying without achieving any brokering opportunities, but I wanted to get to cheap universities to improve my overall culture.
Things continued on at a relaxed pace, with the AI civs advancing ahead at a steady rate and my Babylonians catching up in jumps achieved through wheeling and dealing between them. I founded an embassy in Rome in 30BC and was startled to see its horribly under-developed state. To those of you who wonder how it's possible to win a game like RBE2 against the massive advantages of the Deity AI, take a look at this:
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Keep in mind that this picture was taken in 30BC, when Rome was well into the Middle Ages as a civ. Rome has no city improvements other than a barracks. In the Roman capital, no less! That's simply atrocious management of city production. And notice how Rome, though only size 6, is already using an entertainer. Rome has TWO game food bonuses in range of its capital, and yet it is barely growing at all. It's working a bonus grassland that is still unimproved over a hundred turns after the game has started. And it's wasting its production on a wonder it is clearly never going to finish. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a classic example of AI city mismanagement. Notice though that the AI civs DO use the luxury slider very rarely, although not very effectively it would seem.
Rome's idiotic management didn't change the fact that they were enormous and militarily powerful however. I made one of my favorite kinds of deals in 10AD with them: my last furs for their ivory + 88g. Sometimes it's good to be small! I pulled off a similar deal on the very next turn with Egypt, trading away my only wines for their silks + 75g. Cleo went from annoyed to polite, and in the event that she reneged on the deal by attacking, I would get my wines back anyway. That's my kind of deal. Although it doesn't show any big changes, I'll still post the 10AD map here anyway just so you can get a feel for my situation at that moment:
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Probably the most amusing thing about that map is how every single Roman city has not expanded its cultural borders, leaving a ton of little cultural gaps between cities. That's certainly a contrast to the other civs on the minimap. I had also decided to abandon Nippur sometime earlier because it was clear that the city would flip to Egypt. It was a long way away and would never have been very productive in any case.
Egypt started getting really scary in 110AD. Cleo simultaneously completed Sun Tzu and Sistine, which combined with their possession of the Pyramids and the religious civ trait, and the fact that they had the most land of any civ... yeah. Ouch. Egypt and Rome were going to end up fighting eventually, and Caesar was going to be hard pressed to stop Cleo. But what could I do to stop that? In the event I was attacked I would defend myself, but the Honorable ruleset disallowed organizing a coalition of powers against Egypt in a war unless they came after me first. As usual, I would just have to wait and see and do the best I could with what I had.
170AD saw a perfect brokering opportunity arise. First I sent horses + 281g to Rome for Invention, a tech that I noticed Persia was lacking. So then I sent Invention + 206g + 12gpt to X-man for Astronomy. I also picked up Monarchy from India on the same turn for Monotheism (Gandhi was behind, heh). Once again I was at full tech parity, and not even behind the 8 ball on gpt payments. What a nice turn of brokering! This is the ideal when trying to trade your way in tech parity on Deity.
The AI wonder cascade ended in 270AD at Copernicus/Magellan. Now I would have a good chance to start snagging some for myself. I pulled off a few minor deals in 300AD for a few more techs: Gunpowder from Egypt for 1028g, then Gunpowder to Persia for Navigation. You can see that I liked having Persia in the game, a weaker civ just a little behind the others that I could trade with to get 2 for 1 tech deals. And I was using poor backwards Gandhi as well, trading him saltpeter for Chivalry and continuing to send him other outdated techs for his dyes. I achieved 100% tech parity again in 300AD, and what a good feeling it was to be even with the AI civs. Of course they would quickly jump ahead again, but it showed how I had the game well in hand.
Egypt and Rome went to war in 310AD, something I had been expecting for some time. I would just have to watch and see what happened. In 320AD, the AI civs suddenly had both Chemistry and Banking. So much for my tech parity! But on the very next turn I spotted another oportunity to swing a 2 for 1 deal, as Persia lacked Chemsitry. Thus: Chemistry from Rome for 494g + 46gpt. (ouchie) Chemistry + 2gpt to Persia for the all-important Banking tech. I once again was caught up on tech, though it had required dishing out some gpt to do so. My Forbidden Palace also completed in Ashur on this turn, giving me two rings of uncorrupted cities. My civ was small but an economic giant. As I advanced into the Industrial Age however, the game was becoming dangerously unbalanced in Egypt's favor.
