A Guide to Playing “Small” on Deity (feat. Piety)

I'm trying out this strategy with DCL13. Indonesia has a marginal faith UB (garden +2 faith per religion, pretty decent but also quite late). However, as you can see from the screenshot, starting location is poor (plains) but with two gems for a good faith pantheon.

Spoilering out the rest since DCL13 is a shared map, but tl;dr: didn't end well, got DOW'd by a good friend around T95.



Anyway, I guess I'll scum back a turn and see if trading him a lux and/or bribing him will work. (and in fact, I guess I could have seen them coming in the last screenshot, but I was lulled to sleep by the DoF...)

Would you normally bribe an opponent like that as a preventive measure? Did I forget something in the diplo? Normally not a deity player nor a good diplo player, so I'm sure there might be something I'm not doing right?

Two things:

I think that city placement was a big problem in that game, actually. If you put your coastal city further south, not allowing him to come through from between the CS, you could have created a choke point. (You'd also need to have allied Valletta, which shouldn't be too hard)

Also, he attacked you in all likelihood because you appear to have absolutely no military. Even when playing peaceful you must have the equivalent of 2 CBs per city, I feel.

I've completed a peaceful game with no bribes, but you need a bigger military, even for pure defence.

@consentient

Thanks for the reply. I agree with you in general, and would normally never have played the game this way (although I'm still mostly an immortal player).

I was trying to follow the strategy guide in this thread, and your two points contradict two comments from adwcta:

adwcta said:

1) Zulu neighbor didn't DoW me, and I was 100% confident that he wouldn't, despite not building a single land military unit.
[...]
When founding your second and third cities, prioritize good tiles that will allow you to produce faith. Try to spread away from the AI instead of towards the AI.

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So, my city placement was aimed at preventing the AI from coveting my lands. I guess I could have tried to expand up to the CS borders since they form such a nice ring of "buffer states" around the starting position, and settling Medan to the south could have achieved that, but for the point of preventing shared borders rather than creating a choke point

I did actually reload one turn and bribe Ceasar off my back, and managed to stay peaceful and convert the whole continent to Islam, that in that sense it is going quite well. Maybe it is inevitable to have to bribe a strong direct neighbour, but OP implied that he would only have to do that with a psycho like Shaka, so I was wondering if I did something wrong on the military front.

It is true that on BNW most AIs will only attack you if they are complete psychos or if you are really vulnerable, but part of dissuading them 'sans bribe' is having a military large enough. If you had built maybe 4 or 5 more units, I don't think Octavian would have attacked you.

But you make a good point about expanding away from the AI.

A possibility on DCL# 13 is going OCC to NC and then settling the two islands, I guess.

However, I myself tried elements of this strategy on DCL #1, playing AS Shaka, no less, and although I was forced to settle towards Washington, parking 4 or 5 Impis on my border really put him off and made him go after someone else instead.

I hit a different kind of wall in 13, I explained in the thread. Small Piety strat tends to be gamebreaking but it packs a fair amount of treading on thin ice

consentient said:

A possibility on DCL# 13 is going OCC to NC and then settling the two islands, I guess.

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I thought about that, but it would be a pretty crappy capital. I could take the one with nature pantheon for +4 faith, and get the second city near sri prada on Selassi's continent for another +3+4 faith... I guess it might be a good way of forcing myself to stay Small, as the capital will stay small okay with a zero-food NW and fairly poor dirt.

I'm now on t140 in the original game,

the whole continent is Muslim except for the troublesome neighbour who just founded a religion (which I'm trying to stamp out, maybe that's a mistake). I'm friendly with all the AI except for the troublemaker and one other. I'm not doing very well economically, I borrowed a lot of money around t120 to get the research agreements running, and I don't have enough happiness to sell a lot of it (I guess I grew too big?). Just opened patronage, maybe should have gone commerce for the money (or taken the church property founder belief, but pilgrimage really helped me get the faith early on...), but it feels like patronage is more important for the win.

In all of my games with Small Piety, I have struggled with...

- Gold until the Modern Era, when trade routes net enough cash and I have 7/8 of them
- Happiness until Ideologies
- Culture the whole game

and have had way too much faith

But I think I proved that Small Piety can work consistently when I won with the Zulu

Small Piety is different class, probably not necessary in this map, though. But diplomacy as a whole is important, which is one of the key components of Small Piety. When I won this map the following things were important.

- Expanding away from the AI. Your 3rd city is unnecessary cuz you've got all the islands.
- Blocking Caesar and Suleiman from settling their cities towards me with all units (about 4-5 usually works).
- Regular "gifts" to the AI for the "we've traded recently" green modifier (+1 gold in the early game, +5 gold in the late game)
- Trying to ensure the Ottomans, Rome, Sweden and England were as war with each other as much as possible. Getting this going early, not waiting until they have units at my borders.
- Trading them all my luxuries, even if last copy.
- Lots of trade routes to the Ottomans and Rome.
- Passing World Congress votes that Rome and the Ottomans like. Not passing WC votes they dislike!
- Strategic denouncing of civs that the Ottomans and Rome also hate (as long as this will not knack up your macro-strategy)
- Switching to their ideology, if feasible.
- Building archaelogical digs in their territory (best use of an archeologist)

consentient said:

In all of my games with Small Piety, I have struggled with...

- Gold until the Modern Era, when trade routes net enough cash and I have 7/8 of them
- Happiness until Ideologies
- Culture the whole game

and have had way too much faith

But I think I proved that Small Piety can work consistently when I won with the Zulu

Click to expand...

Not sure how you're outta gold, as you're taking it super slow to get through things you can actually buy, and have Tithe. Only issue is if you don't have a decent coastal city.

Happiness ditto, you're small, how is happiness an issue?

Culture yes, I've been experimenting with settling the GPs which worked fabulously in the Rome game.

I've never taken Tithe. Pilgrimage seems like the best way of getting the religion to stick.

Not played this with a coastal city, and none of my cities have ever been very decent, compared with what is possible.

Even with 3 or 4 settled GPs, culture is pathetic. And happiness...maybe I'm growing too tall? Not small enough. I stagnate at 15-20...?

As for bribes, I've done 2 games of this completely without them, so the AI only goes to war if it wants. I did this because KB27787 told me that if I wanted the world to be at peace, I should play peace monger, not stir things up. It actually works!

I tried this in the DCL 4 and Jesus Christ it's actually working! However, I will have to restart because I have some occasional brain damage and pick a very useless founder belief (Papal Primacy), but you can definitely spam speedy missionaries and eventually befriend that guy and I don't really think there's much to that map afterwards. Happiness wasn't really an issue that much but gpt was until I got the city connections and trade routes going. That's definitely next on the agenda, as well as Cultural Autocracy, I feel like DCL7 is good testing ground for that

consentient said:

I've never taken Tithe. Pilgrimage seems like the best way of getting the religion to stick.

Click to expand...

But you need gold, and you've got too much faith...

Not played this with a coastal city, and none of my cities have ever been very decent, compared with what is possible.

Click to expand...

Make sure you get at least one or two coastal cities, seriously. If your cap isn't coastal you're at a major disadvantage.

Even with 3 or 4 settled GPs, culture is pathetic. And happiness...maybe I'm growing too tall? Not small enough. I stagnate at 15-20...?

Click to expand...

"Pathetic", but more culture than Tradition or Liberty. What else do you do to improve culture? Guilds, allying CSs, and later SPs. If you have enough gold, you can easily achieve this. You should be growing tall, but a bit later in the game.

As for bribes, I've done 2 games of this completely without them, so the AI only goes to war if it wants. I did this because KB27787 told me that if I wanted the world to be at peace, I should play peace monger, not stir things up. It actually works!

Click to expand...

Agree with the principle, and it can work, but it depends on the map. With the Ottomans and Rome (and with Monty and Shaka in the Netherlands DCL), I think it's inevitable. If you've got a really aggressive AI like Shaka or Mongolia it surely benefits you to get them to war. The world hates them and eventually wipes them out - when you are safe enough you chain denounce and/or declare a proxy war yourself. If you can weaken Diplo civs like Greece, Venice, Siam, Austria, etc, it's surely worth it as well. If you want a real challenge though try the Polynesian DCL without gold bribes... be interesting to see if you can do it.

I've just registered to say thank you for a very interesting guide! I've done Science and Culture on Deity before, but Diplomacy has always seemed too difficult. Well, not now! Very good advice on managing the AI, and although I had to reload twice because I forgot to occupy Monte's army (he DoWs even if friends, if has nothing better to do ), I guess I'll improve with some practice.
I played Netherlands, and although I got to build only one Polder and never used the ships, the ability to sell everything and still be happy helped a lot! I settled 4 cities, went full piety, patronage until scholasticism, some commerce and rationalism opener later.
I managed the falling behind part really well and managed to convert Persia (which was near, but weaker than even me(!) from the beginning until it got trampled by Monte ) and Indonesia, which was a bit too far away, but my religion was very strong! (took Initiation Rites, Liturgical Drama, Missionary Zeal and Asceticism, reformed with Evangelism - wow those prophets are monsters!) I also made Indonesia DoW its fervently religious neighbour Egypt a couple of times to keep Ramses's prophets in check.
Middle game did not went that well, Poland went out of control and I had to buy about 1500 gold for some crazy gpt to buy the SCs and make Indonesia host. Scolars in residence went through immediately, but no luck further - Indonesia did not propose world religion Guess it had another problems as ideology came early. I also did not manage that elegant flipping the board trick for ideology, as I forgot to build Oxford to get to factories, and then didn't have money to rush-buy them because of my international debt. So I went ideology last and settled for Order with Poland, Aztek and Assiria. Indonesia, who went autocracy, didn't want my religion anymore and I couldn't make it unhappy enough to flip, even when Poland and Monte sawed France with its freedom and tourism in half and got a lot of pressure.
So I beelined for globalization with all my research agreements and three great scientists and Scholasticism, and got there second, but after adopting order as world ideology, which gave me even more votes. By the end I switched all cities to gold and was sitting on 12000 gold, which I successfully used to bribe the last two Poland's CSs. Only one CS was conquered in my game, and I've managed to save a couple of them by saving them from an alliance that would have gotten them killed.
Anyway, it was a very fun game, and I'll surely try it again sometime!! Thanks for the guide!

This is really an interesting playstyle to stay small and play catch up.

I tried this and played up to turn 144 with Byzantium. 100+ faith per turn and super-dominant religion (30+ foreign cities, next religion only has 6 cities). However, gold, happiness, culture and CS were not looking good so far. Perhaps I went too far to produce faith, but I took the Glory of Gods and should benefit from the massive faith-buy once entering into the Industrial era.

Save is attached. Any suggestion as if the game is winnable or not?

This requires DLC which I don't have.

Tried this strat out cus it really interested me and made me excited about playing a different way for once. On Immortal difficulty (no guts for Deity yet). There are a few flaws in the guide that I feel like pointing out.

1. You are not 100% assured a first vote in the World Congress. On my game, the first voters were Inca (formed WC) and China (they built FP).

2. This guide assumes that every other civ is going to want to be diplomatic. In my world, by games end, only 5 civs were left, one with 1 city that had only 4 land tiles...

3. I have to question flipping world ideology because, basically, if I hadn't I might of won the game instead of losing a CV.

China were the run-aways in my game, in growth, land, war, science, culture. Theres no bribing anyone to go to war on them when I ask what they want for declaring war on China, and every civ says there "is no way to make this work"

Also, (perhaps this is due to Immortal) the WC was founded very late compared with your guide. I was very amused when the other civ proposed my religion for World Religion though

Not sure how you can have enough gold to give out all those 50gold per 10 turns gifts because I needed all my money to compete in diplo, since there were 3 other civs that went Patronage. I suppose this is an issue in your guide? The amount of other AI's playing a diplo game themselves?

1. It doesn't matter, as long as you get to host the UN vote (+2 votes)

2. Again, it doesn't matter, if played well, you will always have enough votes to win.

3. The beauty of this style is to wait until everyone picked ideologies and then you pick whichever is the most popular (spoiler: it's Order). That way someone else will propose it and take the diplo hit while you just vote for it and nobody will get any funny ideas

You don't need to stop the runaway unless they're rolling the entire map (in which case, buckle down or just quit the game), the UN will always be founded before any AI can get any other VC

Does anyone know of a good Let's Play video using this strat?

What would you guys say is the easiest map for this strategy?

Well, ideally, a Desert start with an early Religious CS nearby to ensure the DF would be nice.