Deity blues

Have an Attila/continents/small/deity game going. Only on turn 115 and so many things are going EXTREMELY well, but there's one major problem in the game that I think makes it pointless to continue, even this early.

The good news: For a small world, continents map, this is a very good setup for Attila. I'm on a landmass with only Theodora who has a tundra start and consequently has been in second to last place. I had NC by turn 92, had five cities by turn 112 and they all have really good terrain, reasonable luxury diversity (3 in capital and average of 1 in other cities) plus there's another great city location (adjacent to Fuji and has jungle.) Early opportunistic DoW allowed capturing 2 Byzantine settlers and a worker, peace deal gave enough gold for my fourth and fifth city. Also was able to cherry-pick the best wonders because I guess the other civs weren't interested in the good ones - Oracle, Petra, and Chichen Itza... on diety. Finished Chichen Itza after other civs had Alhambra and Notre Dame. 4 Battering rams, 2 HA's, 5 composites, and a few warriors should be enough to wipe Byzantine off the map before meeting the rest of the world and suffering bad diplomacy all game. Desert folklore and decent map for it. Seems I can just take the continent all to myself, and work towards any VC that pleases me. Except...

The bad news: Someone on the other continent is doing rediculously well, even for deity AI. Got a message that another civ entered medieval era on turn 38 and entered renaissance at turn 88. I'm betting it's Neb or Sejong. With such a crazy runaway, I doubt there's any way to achieve any victory condition before they finish a spaceship. I can't even steal techs until we meet, and judging from the runaway tech that's whenever he/she decides to.

As far as victory conditions I was thinking of, I really didn't want to build a ship becuase that's the default, almost-always-accessible VC for deity games and this start is too good for that. I really wanted to go culture, between the fact that there's a couple of wonders that give a little extra hotel/port tourism and the wider empire (7 city tradition after conquest) should give lots of extra landmarks. But if a deity AI is entering renaissance before turn 90, I imagine they'll be done with a spaceship pretty close to turn 200 and I don't think there's any way to hit any VC before then.

When you get landmark announcements this early, is there a point to continuing? Is reaching victory possible?

well, may be once a millennium AI will win on turn 200, but never saw this.

ShakaKhan said:

The bad news: Someone on the other continent is doing rediculously well, even for deity AI. Got a message that another civ entered medieval era on turn 38 and entered renaissance at turn 88.

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Well, main question - are we talking about standard speed?

If yes please post save, if AI really manage to win < 220t

Maybe the AI in question won't have any aluminum.

AI always have aluminum. I've never seen an AI win that soon, I would love if you can continue the save and report.

Alas no save exists but the AI can win very early. Spaceship in the mid 170s on Diety normal/normal was the earliest I have experienced.

I would've loved to experience it if it wasn't modded/cooked. I haven't even seen an AI launch before 280.

Jart said:

Alas no save exists but the AI can win very early. Spaceship in the mid 170s on Diety normal/normal was the earliest I have experienced.

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Somehow I'm not very surprised that such save doesn't exist.

Maybe on quick but even that's a stretch in an unmodded game without an advanced start

remember that on higher "difficulty" levels ( i use quotation marks because that word is incorrect and a lie ) the ai isn't any better or smarter nor is it any more difficult.. it just cheats more.

so when you get ahead it'll magically complete its technology right away, or construct a wonder instantly

^^I suppose you have proof of the coding that allows that magic or ability to instantly construct a wonder?

AI doesn't cheat with wonders or techs.

If anything it cheats by reducing the likelihood of building a wonder someone already builds.

sorry for the delay - busy week.

@ironfighter - Yes, standard speed. But...

The reason for the obscenely early entrance into the renaissance era by an AI was that Maria I was in and must have made an absolute beeline towards astronomy. A few turns later a Gau made contact with me. Fortunately, I had eradicated the Byzantine by then and there was no bad diplomacy. Game ended in a culture victory around turn 235.

False alarm, thanks for letting me vent!

Look at you with your turn 235 CV on deity. Man you guys just make me ill. I knocked out a turn 329 SV on immortal this morning and I was so happy. Then I see this crap. Next time, just tell me the AI launched on turn 100. . Lie to me, baby.

He got lucky and scored Petra+Oracle+Chichen Itza on deity, on top of that he got an entire continent to himself, and someone teching quick on other continent that wasn't Sejong for tech stealing etc. This isn't a usual combination. Also if you still haven't won by turn 300, you can lose to AI SV.

Tradition sv or cv on deith is underestimated often. Even with tradition, its not as easy as it looks.

Sub-T200 Deity AI Science victories are not possible, for the very simple reason that even if it's Sejong with a ton of salt and no wars to slow him down, he cannot use his GS or specialist slots properly. I've seen Sejong launch ca. T230-250 a few times when he really gets his act together, goes full Rationalism, full Tradition, Freedom, and actually buys the parts, but sub-T200, never. I also can't be sure that they weren't modded games, because in all honesty I can't remember.

When I first played DCL #12 (Maya), Pocatello would have launched around T250. He had a T180 Plastics, which is what I was going from.

Sclb said:

He got lucky and scored Petra+Oracle+Chichen Itza on deity, on top of that he got an entire continent to himself, and someone teching quick on other continent that wasn't Sejong for tech stealing etc. This isn't a usual combination. Also if you still haven't won by turn 300, you can lose to AI SV.

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OH, I agree completely that luck played a very large part in this instance, majority even. Again:

1.) early warmongerer civ (Atilla is basically Civ5's zerg) on a continents start with 1 other civ that has a tundra start and is one of the worst AI's in the game). PERFECTION... and completely dice-rolled
2.) Oracle I can usually pull off on diety since it's available with philosophy which you beeline immediately after worker techs. But Petra and Chicken Pizza are almost always exercises in futility on deity. Petra I probably could have waited even longer because at the end I realized no other civ had a capital or second city on or adjacent to desert. COMPLETE LUCK. And CP, for some reason, no one was interested in which is extremely peculiar. I know some civs are more inclined to go for certain wonders (Brazil for GLib, for example) everyone seems to always go for CP, but in this case, no one did. As I mentioned, others had completed both Alhambra and Notre Dame before I finished CP. So once again, COMPLETELY LUCK ORIENTED.
3.) No runaway on the other continent. Neb was in the game, and next to Sejong is usually the top runaway candidate, but he was distracted by on-again off-again wars with neighboring Rome. The sort of thing one might bribe for, but happened all by itself due to COMPLETE LUCK.

Primacide said:

Look at you with your turn 235 CV on deity. Man you guys just make me ill. I knocked out a turn 329 SV on immortal this morning and I was so happy. Then I see this crap. Next time, just tell me the AI launched on turn 100. . Lie to me, baby.

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What I've been noticing is that deity victories are often faster than immortal difficulty games. The biggest difference is that the AI may start with additional techs, and even if they don't, having a second city before turn 10 (along with all their other bonuses) allows them to quickly establish several techs ahead of you, which sounds like bad news EXCEPT:

If you're the closest person to them, they'll often send trade routes to you (you may even be the only option.) And if there's someone on the other side of you, they may do the same thing. If you then get a caravan or two, that's 4, possibly even more trade routes with civs that have 5 or 6 more techs than you. What this ultimately means is that at a time when your total BPT is 5 or 6 (3 from palace and a couple from population), you're tripling, quadrupling, or quintupling that amount from trade routes.

In a game of exponential growth, nothing can have a more powerful impact than having an awesome start. And having your early game research quadrupled or more snowballs radically ( access to NC being 10 turns earliier leads to civil service 15 turns earlier, leading to education 22 turns earlier, and so on.)

It doesn't snowball as much as you make it sound.

Science being mostly a function of food, your core science doesn't miraculously grow exponentially like you're describing just because you're getting ancient/classical techs a bit faster.

Meanwhile you have to deal with less available wonders, more CS competition, bigger threats and possibly crappier lands. And if we're talking about a culture victory, immortal AI will always have a lot less accumulated culture.

It's not even clear there is a difference and if there is one I'd value it around 5-10 turns in one way or the other. Not 100.