The Deity Challenge Line-up #26 - Celts

Science, turn 307, meh.

Wanted to go culture but switched to science in the middle of the game, culture output of the AI so high that i feared i wouldnt be able to break it. Second single player game in a year, much room for improvement. Especially with a better early game this couldve been done much quicker.

Is it normal that the missionary and prophet spamming of the AI just stops at some point? I was converted very early by the neighbors, bought all the pagodas/mosques i could get and then very late used the messiah belief to reconvert all my cities plus all the cs around. I was surprised to see that my religion held everywhere until the very end, so i got a constant 35-40gpt from tithe in the late game.

Grendeldef said:

The AI isn't a threat in any way, shape or form... Getting the AI to win a game is tricky with most starts.

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Yes, thats why I gave up single player a long time ago. I just dont see the challenge. For this i tried the smart AI mod but couldnt see much smartness around me.

I actually find it a shame. How can you create such a beautiful, complex game and then annoy your customers with such dumb opponents.

I'm of the middle position. I also think that Deity sometimes feels like a chore, and sometimes even a repetitive script. I also think that most of the time if I came to that thought, that I probably did something wrong and it's my fault. Even if I realise this, it doesn't make me feel any better.

I don't think it's true that Deity is so unformulaic that you can 'do whatever you like', which is what you're implying Grendeldef. You can't ALWAYS build no units. You can't ALWAYS build as many cities as there is room for, etc.

The AI is mostly inept at winning in good time, but there are always three things to remember here:-

- not all players have the same ease with Deity that the better players do
- anyone can have a bad day (my play through of this map proves that with my slowest ever SV)
- everyone has a different experience of every map

Science, turn 307, meh.

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Do you have a screenshot, please?

Acken said:

No, collective rule + Reformation.

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Do you plan to finish Liberty? So it was 4-city NC or 7-8-city NC without GE?

4city NC then added 3. No wont finish Liberty. I'll probably go domination since I've made lets plays with culture/science a lot.
Late game domination also synergize rather well with jesuit education since you don't need the faith for great persons and therefore won't feel bad diverting it to schools and universities.


For the Deity discussion, the main problem the AI faces is a lack of gold early, a poor balance of policy trees and the worst idea Firaxis ever had: the 5% tech penalty per city. The AI wasn't programmed knowing Piety is bad and Rationalism is king or that the national college is the biggest boost of the early game.
The problem I have with communitas and community patch is that they are too much of an overhaul. The game is deeply changed. I'd be looking more for some sort of an "unofficial patch" with a minimalistic approach. Making one myself has even crossed my mind. I also don't understand how the community patch can hope to be balanced while using a modular approach, it's also awfully confusing to know with what options this mod is supposed to be played.

Grendeldef said:

If that's suppose to mean that the AI follows a linear path in every game and hence the player is forced to do the same I'd disagree, more than slightly. In most cases AI's actions or lack of them are totally irrelevant apart from Shaka as next door neighbour - that requires closer look at what he's doing but other than that player can pretty much start with any policy tree, settle any number of cities and just mess around for fun or for no reason at all. The AI isn't a threat in any way, shape or form.

This is highly different world than in vanilla for example when one was quarenteed an invasion from at least one AI before T40, Monte came @T20 and multiple DoWs weren't rare at all, sure the game was usually won after the defending succesfully that early attack but now even that isn't required. Now there isn't mandatory build orders for anything - going without units is fine if so wanted.

On later turns being an era behind makes no difference as AI is gloriously incompetent of actually winning the game. It will rather make a 180 degree turn just before finish to do something totally pointless. Getting the AI to win a game is tricky with most starts.

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All true. But I meant along the lines of optimizing your game, there's pretty much a checklist that if you follow through, you can win around 250. If you mess around, you can expect around 300.

Acken said:

4city NC then added 3. No wont finish Liberty. I'll probably go domination since I've made lets plays with culture/science a lot.
Late game domination also synergize rather well with jesuit education since you don't need the faith for great persons and therefore won't feel bad diverting it to schools and universities.

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I kind of want to try your approach mixing up trees, though I always feel like I must finish them. I don't want to do domination, so maybe I will try culture. Jesuit Education will ease the pain building science buildings in all the cities, though I am surprised it was available as your 7th policy.

Yeah that's another weakness of Piety, you're never sure you'll get something good in Reformation. Only one AI reformed before me in my game though.

The way I play that one is more for originality and fun than efficiency. Piety is never very efficient.

There was a nice policy mod (pre-fall patch) that left Liberty alone, nerfed Tradition's Monarchy by giving the bonus every 3 pop instead of 2, and boosted Piety with culture somehow, and maybe something else. It may have boosted Honor with something like 1g/Barracks line, and there might have been more small changes. It was really fun to play with. I couldn't find it when I looked a while ago - not sure if would work post-patch...

The best simple equalizer I have found is to not take Rat until Industrial, and then only to Secularism. This means my WF policies often end up elsewhere, which to me makes the game more immersive, and less of an A to B to C every game.

Acken said:

Yeah that's another weakness of Piety, you're never sure you'll get something good in Reformation. Only one AI reformed before me in my game though.

The way I play that one is more for originality and fun than efficiency. Piety is never very efficient.

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When did you get your Reformation? It's t59, and Jesuit Education is already gone.

In fact, every AI on my continent went Piety. O_O

Around T90 but like I said only one AI got reformation.

Suck luck. On t65, another Ai picked Reformation... not sure what to pick for Reformation. Sacred sites are still available. Maybe I will go with that, since it looks like Mosques are open, and I might get those.

The second best choice is usually glory to the god.

I can give you my NC save if you want should be easy to get JE from there.

Acken said:

The second best choice is usually glory to the god.

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It is gone, as well. I took Sacred Sited, but somebody grabbed Mosques soon after. Hence, I decided to get up 9 cities. t109 Education. I kind of lost direction in this game, however, since the AI screwed me over in Piety. I built the Oracle and am going to finish Liberty, and then maybe finish Piety. This will be another no Rationalism game, looks like. Will try to go for culture.

consentient said:

I don't think it's true that Deity is so unformulaic that you can 'do whatever you like', which is what you're implying Grendeldef. You can't ALWAYS build no units. You can't ALWAYS build as many cities as there is room for, etc.

The AI is mostly inept at winning in good time, but there are always three things to remember here:-

- not all players have the same ease with Deity that the better players do
- anyone can have a bad day (my play through of this map proves that with my slowest ever SV)
- everyone has a different experience of every map

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I said 'in most cases' and also meant that and just mentioned Shaka as a special case - the game has so many variables and I like to stay away from absolutes.
Obviously as a game evolves some choices become mandatory and some obsolete, carpet of doom on one's surely (usually) requires some units to defends with and 4x4 tile island can't host half a dozen cities but defensive units are not mandatory as T0 default and while 4 cities might be roughly optimal doubling that won't cost the game for human player.
Several choices are less than optimal but that's what 'doing whatever one wants' is. Some, like myself, enjoy screwing around while some are more focused on finishing fast. Everyone for their own taste and I've lost interest in quick finishes ages ago.

Surely players' skill level varies, sometimes 'everything' is just against the player - ruins, CSs quests, neighbours, barbs, whatever - and AI behaviour due to RNG can change the game drastically either way but AI is unable to win in reasonable time frame and or is easily handicapped by various means. Things really have to go very wrong before the AI wins - DCL 10 had some potential but the games were AI has a fair chance of winning are rare.

I've thought of all kinds of cool balances you could do to say nerf ranged units and make siege and melee important, but the real problem goes beyond the move and shoot issue (and some others) addressed in the Smart AI mod. The problem is the AI will sit on 20k with a world leader vote coming and just watch you build space ship parts. In 4 if you jerked around someone would launch, or steal all your cottages and starve out your specialists before you could launch, or march an impossibly enormous stack of units from across the map and roll you. Your best often wasn't enough. I would be much happier if I could lose on Immortal, so I can only imagine what players who can't lose on Deity feel. I love the mechanics of 5 so much more, particularly the death of transport ships, but I wish the AI had the same killer instinct it did in 4.

This is good

Finished liberty for happines, used GE for Pisa, and Pisa GE will be used for Uffizi.

I think I will go Order and try to make their tourism modifier to less happiness civs work. 18 happiness from Socialist Realism + 27 happiness from Celidith Halls + I still have to build Coliseums. I think I could pull it off. Considering I am pumping out culture and already have tourism ticking to other civs, I wouldn't worry about ideological pressure.