Is war a must on deity? What to prioritize?

Hi guys.

So, I've been wondering if war is truly a must on deity, considering that the AI have ridiculous bonus towards everything.

It's really hard to compete on food, science and culture when the AI is ICSing and with twice the size of your cities.

But what do you consider a sweet spot to not consider war and, instead, try to develop your founded cities?

And in both scenarios, what do you prioritize? Food production and science? Other stuff seems irrelevant.

Thanks in advance!

civ community is one of the best ones out there!


Enviado de meu ST25a usando o Tapatalk 2

While a war on Deity is not always a must, it is typically quite likely. The trick is to use Diplomacy to set the AI's against each other whenever you notice they have an army massing at your borders.

As to what to prioritize, I am going to have to go with Food. It also helps to go Tall and limit yourself to Four Self-Founded Cities.

If you're anything like me, you will try to avoid war on deity and then create wonderful cities for the AI to raze and puppet. It fills me with satisfaction to provide Shaka with an outstanding fourth city. He typically expresses his gratitude by taking my capital. I deeply appreciate that.

Yes. On deity you will be at war. Just try not to get multi-DoWs and you can consider yourself ahead of the game.

I find on Prince, war IS a must, or a top TWO military if:

-You are having an over-seas colony
-You have Shaka/Kahn
-You have been in a land grab with a neighboring civ

Otherwise, you will be a target.

It is not always a must. I have had games when I finish deity SV with 3 archers It depends on your neighbors and other AIs. Many times you can bribe them to DOW someone else if you see an army at your borders.

I play on immortal mostly, but I've tried deity a few times just to see if I can win on deity. Turns out I've won twice and lost much more than twice. I'm sure I'm not a deity player, I consider those 2 games as luck. In those 2 games that I won, I never have any war at all and I won with the boring tradition 4 cities SV in both games.
I think the reason why I don't have any war in those two games is that 1. I was very isolated with only one peaceful neighbor (Arabia in the first game and Russia in the other). 2. I paid the ai very well to fight each other. In my first game I had literally only 4 ARCHES as my whole army in the entire game.
It's possible to win without any war, just make sure your science is optimal and eventually you have the tech lead.

depends on what you mean by war...

if you mean me stealing settlers and workers, yes war is a must.
if you mean taking cities, no it is not a must.

much more cost effective to steal those slave workers than building them. and some civs after you make peace, and send them a trade caravan become life long friends.

Not a must.

In fact, it is much more natural (read: easy) to grow and develop empires, while staying at peace with everyone else. Personally, i find peaceful play the easiest and kind of boring. My view is subjective, of course.

But, if you are determined to be the next Mohandas Ghandi, think about these points, in no particular order:

1. Proximity. Keep respectable distance between yourself and potential enemy. Don't settle too close. It is considered an act of aggression.

2. Keep them happy. If you have India, Morocco and the Celts as your immediate neighbours - sell your resources to the Celts. Send your caravans to the Celts. Mahatma and Ahmad will be your friends anyway, but you actually have to work to make Boudicca your friend.

3. Keep them busy. Pay your friends to attack civs neutral/guarded to you. Or pay neutral/guarded civs to attack your friends. Don't pay your friends to attack your other friends. Ideally, that is..

4. Propose popular world congress resolutions. World's fair is one example of a proposal, which grants positive diplomatic boost with the world.

5. Return workers/settlers stolen by barbs.

I could go on, but you can probably see by now what i am trying to say: play the diplomatic game flawlessly and everyone will strive to become your friend. On top of that you can try to keep your army in decent shape. Vis pacem, para bellum - in case something extraordinary occurs, make sure you are ready. In advance. You can win with 1, 2, 3 or 30 cities on deity. So, i consider war an entertainment, rather than necessity. Most of the time. As for priorities, my favourite is Gold. Buys everything.

Well war could be a musty if you want to defend yourself against aggresive abusive ais that want to attack and take away your lands.. I dont think you as a player can see it as a must, but the ai could see it as a must to take you out..

I think that the only way to avoid war is if you play on a map that gives you a very isolated position, like an island (which I think is kind of a cheat in itself, I try to stick to mostly continents games that gives every a fair and balanced game). Assuming that you're playing on a legitimate map with a legitimate neighbor(s) I think that the best bet is to pre-emptively plan to take them out at some point early on, regardless of VC (assuming a high level of difficulty). Although I'd say not to do this to more than one Civ unless you're going for Domination. I just find that it's too hard to play when somebody is breathing down your neck constantly complaining about how they covet your land.

And also regardless of VC, I always go for the early worker steal. I'm not wasting 17 turns on a worker in the early game.

As far as I'm concerned yes, war is a must. You have to worker steal, and that means war. Farming xp for your archers and pillaging while you're there are important, too.

tetley said:

As far as I'm concerned yes, war is a must. You have to worker steal, and that means war. Farming xp for your archers and pillaging while you're there are important, too.

Click to expand...

Worker stealing isn't a must, even on deity. And if you aren't planning on warring then you don't need to farm xp or pillage tiles. Though even when I worker steal I don't pillage anything (though I suppose against Civs rather than city states it serves to slow them down).

Pillaging gives you gold.

So far I have lost exactly one game on deity since BNW, out of over a hundred. I never steal workers from city states. I have on occasion taken a worker or settler from another civ if opportunity dictated it but not as a matter of habit. So no, worker stealing is definitely not required.
It MIGHT be needed for the tightest win times but I don't care about how many turns I need to win a game.

War is not necessary, and about 15 to 20% of my games end without a war, or with only very minor (purely defensive) conflicts.
That said, war makes things much easier. If you do composite bow rushes or cripple a nearby civ early by stealing a settler and/or workers, it becomes a lot easier.
Later on you are sometimes forced into war to deprive other civs of victory.

Since war is not (always) needed on Deity, that implies that it is not (always) needed on Prince either, since your rivals will just be ridiculously much weaker then.