How to win. A short guide.

There are few simple rules to obey to really enjoy the game. I think.

1. Always play Deity, after you've learned the game. The challenge is low anyway.

2. Know what you are doing. You need a goal. If you just play, you'll lose anyway. And run to that goal. No walking, no turning.

3. The easiest civ to play is Persia. Immortals really slaughter your enemies. Iron can always be found. The second is Iroquois. Mounted warrior is fast, so they seldom die, and the attack of 3 can beat even the musketmen. The romans are also quite good, militaristic and legions are effective, but clearly second rate to previous two. The rest are scrap.

4. If you want to win, wage an offensive war. If you are going to wage an offensive war, build first barracks, only after that units. There's no point in wasting your population or shields to build regulars.

5. If you want to win, play despotism. Slave hurry is unbalancingly good.

6. Wonders. Why should you build them? Just conquer them.

7. When you conquer an enemy city, raze it. Unless it (a) has a useful wonder(pyramids) or (b) it has enough wheat/cattle to grow very fast or (c) you plan to do little trading with it(see 9) or (d) it has resources you want.

8. Move enemy workers gained from razing or capturing to a nearby city and use them to hurry your armies. Either Immortals or Mounted warrior. Really speeds things up.

9. If you have conquered a big city from enemy, dont garrison it, if your enemy wants to talk to you. Then make peace and exchange that city for several small, secluded cities in the back. Then conquest it immediately back, it's empty now. I have repeated this thrice, before enemy ran out of towns. I don't think it's fair, but anyway, what does it matter? We are here to win.

10. Don't care about your reputation. Just attack them first. Stab. Raze. Betray. And finally you will beat them.

11. Always build roads right behind your invading armies. Always.

12. Take advantage of the terrain. Drag the enemies towards some open place, they follow you obediently.

I don't know if I've forgotten something, but if I have, I'll probably post it later.

How do these function in game? Let's take a small look to game I played with Persians on a tiny map:

4000 BC found Persepolis. In city radius one wine and one cattle on grassland and few mountains.
Started to develop iron working. Built a second worker, spearman, temple and barracks in Persepolis. Invented iron working, found iron 3 tiles away from Persepolis. Used second worker to build a colony and the first to make a road. From then on, only immortals.

2390 BC Declared war on indians, my nearest neighbour. Razed Bangalore. I had only one immortal at this time. Victory trickered the golden age, so I got an immortal every three turns.

2110 BC Razed Calcutta.

1750 BC Captured Delhi(7b) Made peace with Indians, extorted all the tech they had and city of Bombay, leaving only Madras to them.

1575 BC Stabbed indians, destroyed Madras. Only two enemies were left: China and Japan.

1425 BC captured Beijing(7c)

1400 BC changed Beijing for Xinjian, Tsingtao, Nanking, Chengdu and Shanghai.

1375 BC Lost Nanking, Tisngtao, captured Beijing(7c). Started to reposition my immortals, I had lost only one until this date.

1175 BC Destroyed Canton

1125 BC Stabbed Japan, destroyed Kagoshima.

1075 BC Destroyed Tsingtao, end of China

1050 BC Captured Satsuma(7d). Changed Beijing with Japan to Osaka, Tokyo and Edo. Lost Edo.

1025 BC Captured Beijing(7a)once again, chinese resistance ended completely.

1000 BC Captured Edo and Kyoto, end of Japan.

End of game. 18501 points. Easy, isn't it?

Ari

13. Never build settlers. They aren't needed except VERY seldom. Instead, build military.

1. Always play Deity, after you've learned the game. The challenge is low anyway.

Click to expand...

Why play Deity if the game is played in a way that makes it easy? The whole point of playing Deity is for a challenge. Using psuedo-exploits like pre-patch city trading kind of ruins the whole point IMO. Most of the other advice you give is solid. I do think that playing on small/tiny maps makes for too easy of games though.

If all you're after is a high score, try playing from this save I'm attaching (takes no strategy/skill, just an edited map that I used to figure out the conquest scoring bonus)

Tiny Map / Deity / Pre-Patch... Right?


I don't get why people play, prepatch just so that the can use more exploits... like trading cities... you can't do that post-patch...

After I installed patch, it became harder to trade cities, but it is still possible.

And the point here was to WIN, not to ENJOY.

Ari, how did you fare on larger sized maps with Deity? I am playing Deity on standard map, 8 civs and raging barbarians. I am having a hell of a time.

For now I've played as deity only three games in tiny, one standard and one small.

Tinies I won. It took ~3 hours a piece.

Standard I'm playing with iroquois. I've destroyed Aztecs, Americans, Egyptians and Romans. English, greek and french remain, but I got bored because the map is so big, and there's no group move. Why not? But I think it's possible to beat them still.

Small I just started as greece, beated the romans. Right now I have to decide whether I'll kill'em all(I could do that), or if I want a more peaceful solution for a change.

I haven't yet seriously tried big maps, I find it disgusting there's no decent way to fight against corruption. Though I have to test it with that new patch, I got it only yesterday.

I'm no more so sure about the goodness of Persia/Iroquois. I just won with iron age greeks, not using my hoplites, against romans, who would have had legions, if they wanted. They had iron in their area, but they built no road to it. Is AI really that weak militarily, don't they realize the use of strategic resources? If they build warriors and spearmen to ATTACK, how could they hope to win?

Well, sure, if you want to play around with the combat model...

but are you really playing the game? You only founded one city! You didn't build a civ, you just destroyed the others. Although you did win of course

While the advice given is good for specific conditions (tiny maps) and play styles; it can't be considered universal. I play to build a civilization and enjoy the game, not to destroy and win - although I do like to win. Would suggest that if you find the game too easy, even on deity using your approach that you go to the editor, expand the huge map to 256x256 and then attempt to developan an unbeatable strategy under those conditions. Heck, you might even have fun - and you will certainly have to learn to build.

Agree with Anglophile, also what is the long term appeal of winning by Tiny Conquest?

Try a large or huge map on Deity and have fun with your Slave Hurry.

I build better than any of you. Anyone can build. Winning is the challenging, fun part of the game.

I will play large perhaps the next. I just don't like that much moving around, it's boring. But I still believe the DID principle will bring victory.

And I quote:
"6. Wonders. Why should you build them? Just conquer them. "

Well, that means you don't need to build them, it takes less resources to conquer them. Ofcourse you can build them, if you wish. And I've built them often. The point here is the most efficient gameplay.

Making just one city most probably won't work on bigger maps. Why play tiny maps if you can win in 1850 BC? It takes more time to win on larger maps, and it will take you into the more advanced technologies. I really, really like modern units like tanks, bombers and battleships so I always play large maps. Plus, you can't just conquer a wonder because you simply won't get there if it's on a different island. You need to come up with much more versatile strategies. But in the ends, it's just personal preferences what you like...

Agreed. You're taking advantage of the fact that there is only 3 enemies and at most 5 cities to beat, giving you a window of only up to 1000 BC. If your enemy's techs ever got as far as Pikemen, or maybe even Swordsmen/Horsemen, you could never win this way.

Also, how do you win against the Aztecs this way? Or the Zulus?

Yes, I have one game on large map going on. It just takes more time. I'm going to play one in huge.

Aztecs are easy, zulus even easier usually. Greeks are difficult to win.

Pikemen makes no difference, at that time I usually have so many swordsmen. Even musketeers lose eventually, but it's demanding a lot resources.

And about different islands: ever heard of ships? Galleys can be used to transport your units to other islands.

I've won romans with legions, aztecs several times, Egyptians with war chariots. AI simply can't wage a war effectively.

Originally posted by Ari
I build better than any of you. Anyone can build. Winning is the challenging, fun part of the game.

Click to expand...

Again, if winning is the challenging, fun part of the game, why set up games so that winning is easy?

As far as city trading goes, the AI will not trade cities at all with the patch. You can still gift a city to the AI, or demand a city for peace, but adding anything to compensate for the exchange of the city will cause them to never accept the trade, even if it would be beneficial for them to allow the addition. Try it, demand a city that "they will probably accept" and then add something that you wish to give to them. It will change to "they would never accept such a deal". That ruins the "big city for lots of little cities" trades you mentioned.

I do agree that conquering wonders is the best way to play on Deity games. The only time I build ancient era wonders are in OCC games, or the Lighthouse if there is a lot of water on the map. The time it takes to build a wonder is just too much compared to the time it takes to build up an army to take that wonder once it has been built. Usually by the late Middle Ages, or early Industrial, wonder building becomes worthwhile.

Possibly the least fun approach to the game I've encountered.

I'm not against conquering wonders. Often when I don't get a critical (or even good) wonder I'll mark down its city, and if I ever go to war with that civ, then I know where the wonder is if it's feasible to conquer it.

I'm just against stuff like:

"And the point here was to WIN, not to ENJOY."

"1. Always play Deity, after you've learned the game. The challenge is low anyway. "

"Easy, isn't it? "

coming from the same author as:

"Winning is the challenging, fun part of the game. "

I mean, isn't that slightly hypocritical?

"Again, if winning is the challenging, fun part of the game, why set up games so that winning is easy? "

Couldn't agree more. I would play Huge maps except it kills my computer. It must be pretty fun, though.

The real test will be when multi player is released. This and various other strategies will be tested when they have real opponents (i.e. human) to go against. I think that the results will be somewhat different.