Immortal/Deity - Can't progress, despite a ton of research

Brief history: I'd played Prince for the longest time, since I had read up on the advantages the AIs get on the higher levels, and didn't fancy starting out behind and 'catching up'. Obviously, as the months passed and I got better, I decided to try a different challenge.

On King, I found that the only difference was that I would fall behind if I let one civ become a 'runaway civ', so even if I was playing peaceful, and was safe from them if they attacked, that I would never be able to out produce them in the endgame (for spaceships) or overcome their culture with tourism. But I could still pretty much win most of the time, and it was definitely a more interesting game.

I settled on Emperor as a challenging but not crazy level, all the while watching Deity LPs, reading 100s of strategy threads, and the like.

I've now played about half a dozen games each on Immortal and Deity but find I can't get anywhere near close to winning, to say the least.

On Immortal, I can often survive and fend off attacks, but end up so far behind it's untrue.

On Deity, I tried using diplomacy to head off early, built on good maps according to the principles I'd learned in the threads, and built many more military units, but always, by T150 at the latest, I'd get overrun by the most aggressive civ in my area, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Case in point: My latest game on Deity I was Pocatello sandwiched between Genghis and Alexander, with Gandhi across a large lake, and I felt I was in a good position, and was building my military towards the inevitable showdown, when BOTH DoW'd me, Alexander's being a stone cold backstab, and I was toast, needless to say.

I am not one of these crackpots who say that the top players have a mod that allows them to make it LOOK like they're playing Deity in the LPs whilst actually being easier, but right now I am completely lost as to where I'm going wrong. I've read so many threads and watched videos that SHOW where a lot of people are going wrong, and I don't think that any of my actions are wasteful, or anything other than what I had to do at each point in the game. Gold and science were healthy, and I had caught up to 3rd in tech by turn 120-130ish in my last game, so I don't think I'm clueless, but I really could use some pointers so I can try to beat the game on Immortal and Deity.

Lastly, many of the LPs I watch are on old versions of the game, and so many of the strategies have no doubt changed. To reference a couple of examples, there is a Deity LP for the Mayans, using an ICS Piety empire, here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adnfL3x2IGU

and a quite incredible 3 city culture victory with India, here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6kW8VzeW-U

and finally, one with Poland, here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR0zxOO2T18

In all of these, MadDjinn has far fewer units than me in comparable situations, and I can't understand why he isn't attacked a lot earlier. Particularly in the Poland one, he isn't DoW'd and he has less than 5 units I think.

EVERY Deity game I play one or more aggressive Civs come at me between turn 75 and turn 150 with an army so large I lose count. One time Askia had more than ten Mandelaku Cavalry and I held him off with 8 or 9 CB and some trebuchets, but couldn't catch my breath in a war that lasted over 40 turns, all on defines, and then pretty soon he'd gone so far ahead in tech that he came back with reinforcements that had me clicking 'Exit to Main Menu'.

Thanks to anyone who's read all this. Any pointers please?

[EDIT: Another thing that I feel is important is that quite a lot of the time in those LPs, MadDjinn is trading lux for gold with people he isn't friends with. I can't do that on my version, so I guess the game has changed. What would a Deity level player do instead?]

try to master immortal before trying deity. It's a huge jump. emperor should be a cakewalk to be ready for deity.

one thing that helps avoid getting DOW'd is bribing AIs. If you see troops approaching you (keep a unit between your empire & aggro neighbors) bribe them to attack someone else instead, or bribe someone else to attack them.

it's not always an option but very frequently is quite effective.

It might be your diplomacy.

Dont give an embassy too early. Make sure you have troops right next to your cap. Make sure you are not last in troops. Plan the demise of your warmonger AI early. Dont settle in his direction. Dont expect the whole game to be peaceful. Send a trade route his way. Trade a resource to him. Bribe him to attack someone else or bribe someone else to attack him. If you see his army coming at you, denounce him.

Well for your first deity game, getting sandwiched between those two is hardly ideal for learning although t150 is quite late; you should have several Xbows ready by that time... the real scary ones are the t50 rush ones.

Try not to expand between them for starters, and let them expand into each other. That way it's easier to let them fight among themselves.

Or you could also try emperor.. Emperor isn't as easy as it looks, the ai can be easily underestimated at this level and at the immortal level.

consentient said:

On Deity, I tried using diplomacy to head off early, built on good maps according to the principles I'd learned in the threads, and built many more military units, but always, by T150 at the latest, I'd get overrun by the most aggressive civ in my area, and there was nothing I could do about it.

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If you have a big military you shouldn't be overrun by units. So, this suggests maybe your warfare tactics could use improvement. Basically, if you kill one or two of their units per turn, without losing any of your units at all, then you should be able to fend off even the largest onslaught, while gaining experience and great generals. This involves focus firing to clear their units, using your city's defense well (and placing cities in defensible positions), and managing your units so you never end a turn with your unit in range of certain death.

consentient said:

Case in point: My latest game on Deity I was Pocatello sandwiched between Genghis and Alexander, with Gandhi across a large lake, and I felt I was in a good position, and was building my military towards the inevitable showdown, when BOTH DoW'd me, Alexander's being a stone cold backstab, and I was toast, needless to say.

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As soon as you see these neighbors, you need to prepare for aggression. Genghis is easy to pick off because he will attack city states and piss off every other civ. So, pay off other civs to fight him for you. Everyone will want to attack Genghis. Alexander is aggressive, so you should be paying him to fight people... in fact, you could most likely have paid him to fight Genghis and then just peacefully watch them fight each other.

Also, with those neighbors, it's important to plant your expansion cities in locations that a) don't piss them off or b) are easily defensible with mountains, lakes, rivers, hills, and rough terrain.

consentient said:

Lastly, many of the LPs I watch are on old versions of the game, and so many of the strategies have no doubt changed.

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If anything, it's probably easier. With diplomacy in BNW, it's pretty simple to never get DOWed if you pay people to stay at war and don't piss anyone off.

consentient said:

In all of these, MadDjinn has far fewer units than me in comparable situations, and I can't understand why he isn't attacked a lot earlier. Particularly in the Poland one, he isn't DoW'd and he has less than 5 units I think.

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Diplomacy

consentient said:

EVERY Deity game I play one or more aggressive Civs come at me between turn 75 and turn 150 with an army so large I lose count. One time Askia had more than ten Mandelaku Cavalry and I held him off with 8 or 9 CB and some trebuchets, but couldn't catch my breath in a war that lasted over 40 turns, all on defines, and then pretty soon he'd gone so far ahead in tech that he came back with reinforcements that had me clicking 'Exit to Main Menu'.

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If the war lasts 40 turns, something is probably wrong.
First... are you trying for peace? They may want a bunch of your cities, but just try for white peace anyway and click "accept" and you should usually get it after 5-10 turns of fighting them off despite their demands for stuff.

Also, 8 or 9 CB should be more than sufficient to clear out ten Mandelaku Cav. You may need also a pike or spear fortified up front (bonus vs. mounted) to take the impact of the cav while you clear them out one by one and decimate his army.

consentient said:

Thanks to anyone who's read all this. Any pointers please?

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Other (unnecessary but sometimes helpful) things to help with your warfare: walls, forts, strategically placed roads, and use the terrain as much as possible (example: place CB on a hill to fire down on a marsh/river crossing, etc)

consentient said:

MadDjinn is trading lux for gold with people he isn't friends with. I can't do that on my version, so I guess the game has changed. What would a Deity level player do instead?]

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Make declaration of friendship or just trade resources for gpt. Or trade resources for DoW on other civs.

Good luck!

Make wars. If AI DoW you, prepane to fight until you lost too many cities to continue. Also, settle on hill, research construction and build a wall in frontier city and in capital (AI use to go throw you territory, looking for you cap).

On deity, before ideologies I use to have 4 to 6 archers/CB, if I'm playing peaceful. After ideologies it's different but you can have a peaceful game with your initial warrior. That's the game, all try are different.

Ghengis is not a backstabber. Build a caravan and send it to him. He is one of the earliest AI to offer DoF.

The immortal and deity levels are really difficult. Emperor isn't even that difficult and the ai still manages to sneak away with a few victories with this difficulty
The description in the deity level also says that only the best players in the world can beat the deity difficulty.

Thanks for all the responses, especially yours Fedora

One more thing, I DID pay Alexander to attack Genghis, and he didn't. He declared way then just waited 10 turns and made peace. I guess the AI decided he didn't want those lands, even though there were more cities in there than in mine.

I'll try to take on board everything that's been said. I guess another thing is that I struggle with balancing military with other things in the early game. When I've made a big enough army to repel a turn 80 DoW, I find that I'm like 12 techs behind and can't catch up for the next war.

And...I find that if I beeline National College as some people suggest, that by the time it's finished I have a much smaller army and probably no walls, etc.

If someone could share their EXACT build order on a successful game surrounded by aggressive AIs, I would be really grateful.

check the deity challenge with Asyria - its more or less same setup - not much land and Greece and Shoshone from both sides.

consentient said:

If someone could share their EXACT build order on a successful game surrounded by aggressive AIs, I would be really grateful.

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Maybe can you post your initial save. I'll try it.

If it's Deity, I'm only on a 50/50 win ratio.

just to add what was said:

the AI on emperor can be more aggressive than on deity, being the strongest in economy, science etc but with a weak military makes one a prime target.

bribing somebody else to attack the aggressor does not help. if the AI has a plan to attack your city you can only bribe this AI to attack somebody else.
or you can block their troops (they declare only when they reach their destination, but they cannot go there...), but that is too exploity for my taste.

I play only on Immortal because a) I like to win, and b) As others have noted Diety is a different game sometimes.

My advice that I focused on to win consistently:

1) Always remember to make sure you're growing pop fast enough. Particularly in Your cap. Cargo ships if possible. Don't half-ass you growth. Growth gives specialists and specialists allow for GE and GS. And specialists with Rationalism specialist bonus is key.

2) Range and Pikes. Learn them. I also happen to like allying with military cs to be sure I get some units if I'm light. Keeping some units out a long way from your boarders to barb camp hunt is a good idea.

3) Save some GS and bulb into Dynamite if you're behind on tech and need more cities desperately or simply need to expand. 6-8 Artillery and accompanying troops can basically dominate any AI, and you can plan to build cannon and save gold. Artillery changes games especially if you aren't up against planes yet.

3) Diplomacy. Others above mentioned the key ones. Do not accept embassies unless you need to trade. And I rarely embassy military civs, period. Be aggressive in selling resources. I sell all my iron and horses sometimes to civs far away from me, even for gpt only.

4) Learn combat . Citadel if you have the location, but always retreat and rally around cities. And plant with defense in mind. Build forts if necessary. Funnel opponents into spaces you want. Learn to swap out melee to absorb and pin down damage and then snipe units with range two spaces away. If you're not killing a minimum of 4 to 1, and the one being melee or horse units, you aren't linking units the right way.

Lastly, make sure you're not too wasteful in early game turns. Tradition is easier to learn than Liberty, but if you want to play with more cities, and more empire spread to allow late game cities, it's worth learning Liberty. The finisher GE gives you a nice wonder. On Immortal I don't try hard building a wonder until I'm into Industrial era.

Your chances of winning increase a lot more in the less difficult levels.

Diplomacy is an option. But why not adapt to the situation and be aggressive yourself. Genghis is an early threat and Alexander is one of the most annoying leaders to play against anyway. Take a look at a domination guide, to get an idea of how to ramp up your military fast for turn 50 or so CB rush. Then from there you focus on another victory type or just keep on steamrolling.

If you want to play a peaceful Deity game, do it on a map that allows it. It's that simple.

Ok so an update:

I've played two games of Immortal since posting this thread. Both random divs, standard.

1. OCC, Pangaea, Babylon. I get placed right on the far peninsula of the landmass, which was lucky beyond belief. I have no neighbours, and the warlike divs spend the first 150 turns fighting each other. During this time, I managed to scout the entire landmass so I could host the world congress, and race into a huge tech lead. I kept my military strong enough to be higher than the average, kept good relations with a maritime CS right next to me, and used two workers to improve all the nearby tiles. Once I got the techs that allow more trade routes, my GPT was pretty healthy, and everything looked pretty good.

ALL OF A SUDDEN, I see that I have slipped from 1st to 6th (out of 7 remaining civs) in tech and Ashurbanipal builds literally five cities in as many turns, stretching out a finger towards my lone Babylon. I go to investigate with my crossbows and find an army that can crush me beyond belief.

Its obvious at this point that I'm not going to win a science victory, but I really don't understand what went wrong and how they caught up? I was thinking that when I got artillery I would go down into the main area and take a few puppets with artillery vs much older troops, but alas something went wrong?

I mean if I can't stay ahead on tech with OCC Babylon, then something is seriously wrong.

2. Spain, Pangaea. I went liberty, found El Dorado and Mt. Sinai, and raced into an early lead, quickly spread my religion, and then again fell behind on tech.

In both games, something is clearly going wrong. There must be something severely wrong with my play to go ahead and then fall behind, both with one city and with 4 and 2/3 puppets.

Science wise, I grow the cities and have library/NC, but in game 2, even before universities I had called back down to 8th, even below Askia who myself and other civs had reduced to one measly pop 4 city.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!! HELP PLEASE!!

I mean, I know I've found the problem, I just don't know exactly what about my strategy is causing it

post savegames dude, its hard to answer a question like this w/o details ...

dragonxxx said:

post savegames dude, its hard to answer a question like this w/o details ...

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OK, I will. How do I do that? [/noob shame]

see the advanced reply options. You can attach a file.

Ok here is my Immortal OCC Babylon save. I really appreciate everyone trying to help me out.