Questions: Warmongering on Deity (When You're Not The Mongols)

I've been goofing with early Warmongering lately on Deity and it seems to me that, other than the horrible Warmongering penalties (which mostly suck because nobody will trade for the millions of luxes you capture), the tech gap you suffer, already bad on Deity, just gets worse.

In my limited experience, what happens is I take one cap with CBs, another with XBows, maybe start putting a dent in a third, but by then it's turn 120-130 and a bunch of knights and musketmen show up to be a pain in the ass. And I'm not getting Education until turn 130 because I beelined XBows and focused on building an army.

It is entirely possible that I'm just Doing It Wrong, combined with Deity Is Hard, but -- is the concept that after you've taken over 4-5 cities, including a couple caps, you just turtle at that point, try to make up some lost ground, maybe go Education and then straight to Artillery?

Any way works, but, generally, you would want to be at war non-stop, as these valuable promotions do pile up until your units become simply invincible. Another important thing is pillaging, as it brings so much gold. Sometimes you make a mistake and you have to stop and re-group, but, ideally, as i said, you want to keep your war machine rolling.

You're welcome to read the latest deity challenge thread where Grendeldef and myself are doing pangaea deity domination. It's pretty detailed description out there. He is doing it with liberty, myself - with tradition.

But yeah, deity is Hard, don't judge yourself too harshly. Every game is unique and there is no substitute for experience.

Moriarte said:

Any way works, but, generally, you would want to be at war non-stop, as these valuable promotions do pile up until your units become simply invincible. Another important thing is pillaging, as it brings so much gold. Sometimes you make a mistake and you have to stop and re-group, but, ideally, as i said, you want to keep your war machine rolling.

You're welcome to read the latest deity challenge thread where Grendeldef and myself are doing pangaea deity domination. It's pretty detailed description out there. He is doing it with liberty, myself - with tradition.

But yeah, deity is Hard, don't judge yourself too harshly. Every game is unique and there is no substitute for experience.

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Sadly, a double-strike +1 range healing Xbow gets run over by a surprise attack by a knight as well as any old chump . Thanks, will check it out. Like I said, in my limited experience things can roll along extremely well until you start seeing gunpowder units, and the problem there is that to, say, get to Gatling guns takes awhile.

Beelining a military tech is only viable if you plan on winning with that tech or if it's a small detour.

So if you go straight for Xbows. Just be ready to be able to kill almost everyone with them + 1 or 2 with CB. This is possible on some favorable Pangea (flat, easy AI, easy capitals). For example see Zulu deity challenge #1 or the winners of the Theodora Deity DV gauntlet.

CB aren't a big detour and capturing a quick capital early in the game is an okay decision especially if you're boxed in. As long as you don't wipe the AI you can still end up with a few friends for the rest of the game. XB isn't a big detour either after education. However these 2 detours won't give you more than a few cities each. You also have chariots as a valid early game option and if you play as mongols/arabia they are perfect for quick pangea victories. If you don't play these 2 civs and chose chariots, you'll just be forced to skip the XB timing (since you don't have CB to upgrade) but it's a lesser detour than CB.
When a militiary tech is just for a quick conquest you still have to field a strong science game behind it, education, secularism etc.

Once you're set on a military tech that will win you the game, just pull your ressources into acquiring it early. So if you want to win with XB, you don't need edu but you need machinery around T100. I often skip NC for a XB win. If you don't think XB are going to cut it you will probably want artillery to be your killing tech, if you don't think you'll need bombers (very fast dynamite) just skip schools. If you think you'll need both artillery/bombers then extend your science build up up to schools.

How is science being depressed because of military? I usually take an initial hit because I'm producing military instead of settlers and other stuff, but that catches up. Eventually courthouses are not that bad to build and maintain, and that early military means I'm building xp in addition to science and economy. So long as my military is actually doing stuff, they usually earn their keep, maintenance and all.

Anyway, not a rhetorical question: how is your science getting hurt by early warring?

tetley said:

How is science being depressed because of military? I usually take an initial hit because I'm producing military instead of settlers and other stuff, but that catches up. Eventually courthouses are not that bad to build and maintain, and that early military means I'm building xp in addition to science and economy. So long as my military is actually doing stuff, they usually earn their keep, maintenance and all.

Anyway, not a rhetorical question: how is your science getting hurt by early warring?

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Science is hurt by going construction before philosophy, machinery before education, dynamite before scientific theory, by going honor and liberty instead of tradition.
But playing behind in science isn't a big deal really.

The central calculation for me (and please bear in mind that I'm still an immortal player who only wins around 1/3 games on Deity) is how many turns can I maintain a unit 'edge' over the AI victims I intend to strike. If I can maintain an edge for at least 10 turns, that means I can capital snipe. Sometimes you can get 2 capitals in a 10 turn period. During the snipe periods everything is concentrated into war, and in between, you grow your non-puppet 'science' cities and your economy in preparation for the next war, while farming XP with the AI whose capital you took most recently, and only make peace when you have to move on.

Above all, if you haven't tried it yet, use Liberty + Pyramids + about 10 workers on the front line. It's bonkers how much of an 'edge' this gives you.

Pillage farming? On deity that's fair game in my book, but how much luck are you having getting pyramids?

tetley said:

Pillage farming? On deity that's fair game in my book, but how much luck are you having getting pyramids?

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Its pretty reliable to get Pyramids from the 40s-70s. Heck, I've built the Pyramids numerous times Post turn 100 when none of the AI take Liberty. Check your diplomacy window and see if anyone has gone liberty its not fool proof but pretty indicative.

Resipsa said:

Its pretty reliable to get Pyramids from the 40s-70s. Heck, I've built the Pyramids numerous times Post turn 100 when none of the AI take Liberty. Check your diplomacy window and see if anyone has gone liberty its not fool proof but pretty indicative.

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I don't consider Pyramids reliable after t45 unless you stack the AIs with civs that don't favor Liberty.

If I want the Pyramids on Deity, I rush them out by t45 if humanly possible. But, that's just my experience.

Really? That hasn't been my experience at all what do you consider reliable?

I can't account for the difference in experience between myself and others who have posted above me, but in a LARGE number of Deity liberty domination games I have only ONCE not gotten the Pyramids when I've tried for it. Sometimes I am too busy making units or happiness buildings, so don't attempt it before it gets built, most often very late. But most of the time I try to build it, and I almost never start before this T45 mark that people mentioned. Normally I start building around the time I finished the upgrades, which of course can vary. Perhaps if I had to cite an 'average' turn time I complete Pyramids it would be maybe 70?

My thinking is that, in my experience at least, few civs choose Liberty opener. Even fewer try to build this wonder rather than one of the others available to them.

There is definitely something wrong with the AI's valuation of Pyramids though, because I think it's the best wonder. Even if you don't use it for pillage-heal, it can make building and maintaining a wide empire SO much easier.

Pillage heal might be considered a broken exploit, but really its the workers themselves that make warring so easy. Even without Liberty or Pyramids, 10 workers on the front line to be used as lures, reconnaissance scouts, pillage-heal-repairers and road-builders, make fast warfare 10x easier.

Reliable for me better than 2 in 3 odds. In my experience, it's gone 1 in 3 times by t45, 2 in 3 times by t55, and almost always by t65. Y'all are gettin' seriously lucky.

I wasn't even thinking pillage heal. I was thinking solely for the gold. The heal is just gravy. Just one hex alone could do 10 gpt this way, easy.