Deity Challenge?

kb27787 said:

.... Freedom is pretty amazing... (and I suppose you've never built landmarks for someone else/ control the WC?) if picking an ideology leads to DoW then you haven't been doing diplo right. It's just that it doesn't have as much happy as the other trees but the bonuses it gives are pretty amazing, esp. for CS influence.

For people who complain the deity is too easy perhaps they should try culture or domination victories rather than boring science or diplomatic ones. And try not picking Order for once so you have to battle ideology pressure and see how well you do in making a well-rounded empire, rather than one that just has science.

Granted, if the OP wants. he can feel free to post a challenge himself. I'll be waiting...

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I have not said, that freedom is not great I have won many games picking freedom, but the thing is, that if you have any red modifier (besides mistreating protection), when you add the different ideology and some WC proposal (World Church is by far the worst option for that), and the AI gets VERY angry. And the AI almost always picks either order or authocracy, I've seen freedom very rarely and only from a very few CIVs - India, Brazil, Portugal, Greece. All the warmongers (Athila, Zulu, China, England) get authocracy as default. Germany and Russia almost always take Order.


And it seems that the AI actually cares if they take 2 or one free tenet, as I have never had a game, where after I pick any ideology, the second to pick one takes the same as me

By taking freedom, almost all games I played, I was alone there. Its completely different story - if you take order you have always order friends.

And besides all that freedom is better than order, only when you want CV. Order is better for both science and domination ... I have 1 single diplo victory, so I have no idea about it.

DingleBirdy said:

What are the tangible awards they offer? I pretty much stopped playing GotM unless it's a deity game. Is there any way the deity players can get together and create a series similar to GotM or HoF? Also, I'm not too familiar with HoF, so I might have to look into that one.

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Well I said they were more tangible than a random challenge on the strategy sub forum. But at the end of the day they remain very immaterial things in the big picture.

What i mean is that they at least provide some sort of official stamp on them. So that I know when they appeqr and there will be an official ranking when they are over. At a time where the default version of the game dont provide a challenge that stimulates my mind just to win I have to rely on that kind of things to restart what I like about 4x games which is to think and try to do better. But while it was only about beating the AI the first time I tried deity it became obvious that the next would be no longer to just beat the game but to impose a little restrictions and then aim for the fastest times.

The other option is MP for someone looking for competition but I find MP appaling in civ. Its slow, asks me to stay connected for a long period of time, lags and I find tactical combat UPT mixed with simultaneous turns to be one of my most hated online experience. And obviously playing hybrid is just too slow. This is just not for me.

At the end of the day, Id also enjoy a renewal of deity challenges or even whatever difficulty if they at least try to be a little more organized than in the past. If they try to provide both a spirit of competition and a way for others to learn techniques they can be a success. The first people would be happy to compare results, maybe trying new ideas in a less official format while the second group may enjoy learning, like in gotm or hof thread without the pressure of the official format.
And then if it could be somewhat regular you could have people looking for it. Giving comparable results also require an imposed VC in my opinion.

Regarding difficulty the biggest disappointment is that BNW madd the game easier. While were an obvious minority it doesnt feel less annoying. And then Im pretty sure I remember Civ4 being a harder game, something that got hit pretty hard by UPT. I also dont really agree that the devs shouldnt care becquse were a minority. The thing is, the biggest reason for easiness is that the AI is rather bad and this is a sentiment shared by both deity and prince player alike. Everybody would be happier with a better AI. If not in this game then in the next.

I might participate as well but I frequently don't finish games if I think a win is all but locked in and I get bored. Agree that BNW deity is a bit too easy overall although you can make it challenging.

My default map type is fractal which is sometimes very easy and sometimes very hard you never know what you get which is what I like about it. You can have a huge area of land with little land for the AI and lots of chokepoints and so on that mess up AI troop movements or you can get minimal space with multiple warmongers around or be completely isolated until astronomy.

DingleBirdy said:

...I was curious if there is any interest reviving them. Thanks

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Two main reasons for me skip most of the latest were a) they started to come too often & b) some map pack was required to play even though they were seemingly always Pangaea. I personally dislike the current map scripts enough to make a clear decision not to buy any DLC map pack. Whole lot of other minor reasons as well but keeping the tradition going seems like a good idea anyhow.

Grendeldef said:

Two main reasons for me skip most of the latest were a) they started to come too often & b) some map pack was required to play even though they were seemingly always Pangaea. I personally dislike the current map scripts enough to make a clear decision not to buy any DLC map pack. Whole lot of other minor reasons as well but keeping the tradition going seems like a good idea anyhow.

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Only in the last week or so has there been a resurgence.

Try my OCC conquest challenge list below. I basically have 6 or them AI dead right now, just one more to go. And I hope I just dint jinx myself.

dragonxxx said:

By taking freedom, almost all games I played, I was alone there. Its completely different story - if you take order you have always order friends.

And besides all that freedom is better than order, only when you want CV. Order is better for both science and domination ... I have 1 single diplo victory, so I have no idea about it.

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I had many games with Freedom ideologies for a majority of civs.

It wasn't the same a month ago, Order ruled. Now, I'm in a run where Order is more a gamble than Freedom. Standard games are a fight against Autocracy vs Freedom. If I go into Order, I cross my fingers to be follow by some civs.

budweiser said:

Only in the last week or so has there been a resurgence.

Try my OCC conquest challenge list below. I basically have 6 or them AI dead right now, just one more to go. And I hope I just dint jinx myself.

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Yup, I've noticed but I dropped off long before the series evolving into #30s. While the game is excellent I actually don't want to play it (much) as I get seriously pissed by few bugs/annoyances that still after all these years are there. A challenge of some sort might have me motivated.

I'm currently having few games with Alex testing at which point the AI feels it's wealthy enough to start investing money into CSs to prevent me winning - apparently 60k is not enough. #"#&?(/¤ like this keeps me from finishing most of my games and I've never really been into OCC. In this game it defeats the definition of civilization nor is it handicapped enough to be a challenge in that respect - it's a viable option.

when you ally everyone the turn before the vote just Dow everyone ....

Oh no - this is the opposite what I want. I want to see the AI to win but I'm not sure if I have the patience to wait that long as me having enough votes to win doesn't seem to concern the AI the slightest.

Grendeldef said:

I'm currently having few games with Alex testing at which point the AI feels it's wealthy enough to start investing money into CSs to prevent me winning - apparently 60k is not enough.

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They aren't playing by the same rules we are. They wont target your CS and give gold to take away from you. If they did, we would lose every game. Instead, they feed gold to CS according to some schedule and they do election rigging.

What for sure is difficult to judge are AI's actions in general and motivation for x instead of y or z but one can live (and play) in hope but I wouldn't count on them playing by much of any rules, more like informal guidelines. Let's just say that there's still some room for AI to improve.