First time beating diety!!!

After probably 20 solid attempts I finally beat diety level for the first time!! Im pretty excited.

As Babylon on Tiny (4 Civs) Pangea (diety ofc) Standard speed, settings etc.

Vs

Zulus
Sonhai
Poland


Won a science victory with a tall 3 city strategy.

-I went straight to writing for the scientist, put down the academy and rushed to hanging gardens. With the early increased science it seemed like noone was close to beating me to it. From there, construction for composite defense, to civil service and then education etc for uni's, so that i could start spamming great scientists.

-Full tradition, 1 patronage, into rationalism, finished rationalism after a few freedom idealogy techs so that I could get the free tech late in the game. Ignored tourism and faith totally.

-only signed 1 research agreement very late in the game to rush for my last spaceship tech.

-Hardly used trade routes with other civs cause i was always attacked by my neighbors and then eventually they got embagoed. Caravans were for food to my other two cities from my cap was pretty important. I didnt get them that early though. Probably around the time of uni's. Then production going in when building spaceship parts and important wonders. I think i only had 4 or 5 world wonders. Gardens, Forbidden Palace, Porc Tower, Hubble, and thats it.

- 5 first scientists built academies then bulbed all techs after.

- Was under attack constantly by shaka and sonhai, sometimes both at once. but my front that shaka was on had great natural choke points. My cap was behind a mountain. So ranged units killed him as he went in. Constant swarms of troops. If i didnt have the chokepoints I would of lost.

-I think the most important thing with science on diety is that you have to block the AI from getting a diplo win. I see no way to do it before they will get world leader if you ignore delegates. I used my only great engi on forbidden palace.for the extra 2. Kept a spy in a close city state all game. Did city state quests and then finally got world ideaology and world religion that askia spread to me. World leader went through probably 4 times before I won. I was tied with someone at the end with 17 delegates and 20 won it.

-Big Cities to support specialists are important. All artists and writers went to culture and golden ages. Musicians pretty much useless but i used the specialists for science.

-I never took a city or even really went into sometimes territory. played defensive with archers and later artillary with musket/rifle/infantry protecting them. Noone nuked me cause I beat them to nukes and then blocked it with diplo. bribed the AI to start wars ALOT. A few times saving myself when i was getting swarmed by bribing a war with the guy attacking me and then asking for peace after.

I probably got pretty lucky with the starting position of my cap, but damn this felt good.

I do think babylon is better than korea for science wins on high level/ The specialist bonus and tech boost from buildings from korea is great but their two units are pretty bad. The improved archer and walls really help you out early on when your weak and dont have a tech lead yet. Plus the early academy gives you the freedom to rush something you normally wouldn't get and the 50% scientist bonus is huge on top of all the buildings and culture techs possible. I had everything in the game for scientist production except a sweeden friendship boost and leaning tower of pisa.

Now try diety on a large pangea, aim for religious domination, and be aggressive. I'm currently having issues with shaka and atilla as neighbors.. rough start, but my units are awesome. Not even to med era yet and i'm rocking 3 logistics and +range composite bowmen. Just me and my 2nd city, and 3 puppets.

grats btw.

Congrats! Welcome to the forums as well.

Haha.

My only deity victory was completely set-up


Duel, plains map
I used Atilla against Brazil
Took 7 horse archers and 4 rams to get past his great wall and hordes of spearmen

rodrigoq said:

Now try diety on a large pangea, aim for religious domination, and be aggressive. I'm currently having issues with shaka and atilla as neighbors.. rough start, but my units are awesome. Not even to med era yet and i'm rocking 3 logistics and +range composite bowmen. Just me and my 2nd city, and 3 puppets.

grats btw.

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I had heard that it was almost impossible to found a religion on deity.

Genghis_Sean said:

I had heard that it was almost impossible to found a religion on deity.

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Its not, it depends on what civs you get. but its hard to maintain if your not at war constantly and able to block the missionary spam.

Awesome. My first Deity win was also with Babylon, but it was unusually easy. I played on Continents plus and randomly started on a very tiny continent/very large island, big enough for 3 cities, by myself, so it played like an Archipelago game, and I don't think beating Deity on an Archipelago map really counts.

I usually play Immortal on Pangaea or Large Continents, but if I want a fun naval game and do Archipelago or Fractals, I kick it up to Deity and it still feels overpowered. I love naval combat and exploration; I really wish the AI could understand it at all.

I've only ever been able to found a religion on Deity as the Celts (I lost that game ultimately) or by building Stonehenge. Even at Deity the AI has no interest in building Stonehenge. I think every AI-controlled player is just racing for Great Library.

Getting a relig on diety is pretty easy. Generally you can get a pantheon from ruins. With Shoshone, you can "save" ruins and get pantheon and 2 large faith bonuses, pretty much ensuring you get 1st religion. With other civs, it's basically pray for a pantheon and early faith boost from ruins, or have 2nd city next to a faith wonder, or even capital if it's close enough. Celts are guaranteed, and usually you can pull first pantheon and stay 1st for religion and enhancement. And stonehenge is usually ignored, chop it to get it faster, pick up piety starter and chop a shrine. Regardless of Civ, take a desert start if you're given it, tundra empires can also be very deadly faith wise.

Be smart about ruins. You can only get a certain gift once in a given amount of turns. If you're faith/pop/tech hunting, and no AI is remotely close to the ruin, come back for it later. Hitting a ruin 2 turns after finding a tech won't yeild another tech. Hitting pop, tech, faith in 3 ruins in 2 turns means you need to wait 4-8 turns to get them again, so snagging more ruins will be a waste of time, and ruin. Play around with shoshone to get an idea of how long you need to wait for a ruin bonus to reappear on the list, works the same for all civs, shoshone just get to see the list and pick from it.

Congrats Slivera22. Thats where I want to be in a few months.

Im going to work up to it using maddjinns lets plays for inspiration ..

I tried OCC cultural victory on small map-deity. Didnt get it (Azteqs took nearly all map and had big culture), but noticed that it is turn 300+ and AI is still doing nothing, I mean no SV, no war to me, etc. So on small maps SV is kinda easy.

Keirador said:

I've only ever been able to found a religion on Deity as the Celts (I lost that game ultimately) or by building Stonehenge. Even at Deity the AI has no interest in building Stonehenge. I think every AI-controlled player is just racing for Great Library.

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They are. That's for sure. I actually managed to build the Great Library recently after a lucky start. (I tech'd mining, got Writing through a ruin, and was able to put out the GL by turn 38, which was risky as the AI sometimes completes GL as early as turn 30. But nonetheless, it worked!)

Anyway, point being, multiple AIs gave me the "they covet wonders you built" angry text after that point, and that was the only Wonder I built! You know that most of them were like one turn away. Hah! ;-)

Cromagnus, that IS a huge freaking risk. I don't even try anymore. Do you load an earlier save if you get beaten to the Great Library?

Plus the fact that every single other Civ is building Great Library means I can usually build Stonehenge, Pyramids, and the Oracle at my own damn leisurely pace, even on Diety.

Keirador said:

Cromagnus, that IS a huge freaking risk. I don't even try anymore. Do you load an earlier save if you get beaten to the Great Library?

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Nope, I never reload unless I mis-click DoW, which happens sometimes. ;-)

I do resign if I'm clearly screwed. But I don't quit after failing a Wonder. I just had a feeling I would succeed on this one.

Yes, it is a huge risk. But I think I actually got it out sooner with chop, now that I think about it. It was scheduled for turn 38 but I shaved it down to maybe 35? I can't remember.

Anyway, it was the first time I'd attempted GL on Diety since before G&K came out.

It ended up being not worth it because I had to stagnate to get it out that fast. I did jump into the classical era with it. Still a fun trick but not as useful as it used to be, what with the change to social policy tracks.

Edit: Also, this was with Shaka, lol. Talk about getting sidetracked from your original plan!

I'm trying to ween myself off of Great Library specifically since I know it's a non-strategy at the higher levels (I currently play at King but I think I'm ready for the next step up.)