General tips for playing on higher difficulties?

Teproc said:

The biggest difference between Immortal to Deity, in my eyes, is the need to constantly bribe the AI to wage wars on each other. Well, not necessarily constantly, but at least once earlier so that it will hopefully snowball in these civs fighting the whole game and one of them being hated by everyone, hopefully your warmonger neighbor. It is especially crucial in a peaceful game actually, and is the only way to survive with minimal army.

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I never saw this snowball effect.

In my last game, defeat on Deity, I had instant DoW from my two Autocracy neighbors (I was on Order) when I reached satellites (went for a SV with Maya).
So bribe them also after Ideologies.

Budweiser tips help too. I never had a DoW if I was at least 5 or 6 th in military in demographics.

Memoryjar said:

I never saw this snowball effect.

In my last game, defeat on Deity, I had instant DoW from my two Autocracy neighbors (I was on Order) when I reached satellites (went for a SV with Maya).
So bribe them also after Ideologies.

Budweiser tips help too. I never had a DoW if I was at least 5 or 6 th in military in demographics.

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did you build them landmarks? vote up their world ideology: autocracy proposal? at the very worst send them lux/monetary tribute?

Most importantly, make sure your neighbors hate each other (war bribes early on in the game will usually do it) so they don't use "shall we declare war on"... on you.

Most common mistake I've seen is to bribe with no reason (it's pretty obvious that it's a mistake when you spend your resources on just triggering a war); these things can also happen:
1) You created a runaway when one civ is able to achieve complete victory over the other.
2) You've made the world hate the person you bribed, in the worst case, your own aggressive neighbor (say they wiped out a CS) and hence you can never be friends with them (and hence getting a green modifier to help dissuade them from attacking you) without angering the rest of the world, including your other neighbor(s). So now you are being caught between a rock and hard place.

Bribe when:
1) army is close to your borders/spy warns you of impending attack
2) someone far away is running away with a small military next to an aggressive neighbor (although sometimes you don't even need to bribe... the AI will DoW on its on accord)
3) To cancel a civ who has RAs and is doing too well technologically for your taste... (here usually an attack sometimes never happens since the RA is signed with a civ that is not their neighbor) but at least, depending on the cost, you've cancelled their RA.
And try to bribe your neighbor's neighbor, who is not your neighbor

to OP:
Don't watch let's plays if you are only a prince player you'll get confused and you will never be able to pull off their tricks.
put cities on food focus, watch your happiness (build workers) and everything will be fine.

kb27787 said:

did you build them landmarks?

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I forgot.
Thanks to remember me this.

The "bribe-snowball" works quite often and even if it doesn't it will help you diplomatically. The one who takes your bribe will get a warmonger penalty with the other civs just for declaring war; then if he's badass enough (which is probably why you were worried about him in the first place), then perhaps he will take a city, earning even more hate. Even if it doesn't spin into wars right away you will have increased the hate between AI's, helping them to plot on each other rather than on you. Eventually someone will denounce a warmonger, and then his friends will denounce too. Once the warmonger is busy fighting you can also safely denounce him too and earn nice green diplo bonuses with his enemies.

Another little trick in diplomacy is really simple: gifts. Getting the "we've traded recently" bonus up with a reasonable gift could tip your relationship with an AI over to the point where they'll offer a DoF. Then if they have friends, those friends will like you more and you get a DoF with them too. At that point you're golden, you've built up a club of friends. In my current peaceful game I was very concerned about neighbouring Arabia. We'd had an early DoF but now he didn't want to renew it and was a bit annoyed about my expansion. I was worried he might start to plot on me, so I gave him 4 horses, earning a bright green "traded" bonus; a few turns later he offered me a DoF again and all is well

Resipsa, I find myself building walls less and less. Learning how to avoid war in the first place is crucial. Or if war comes, I want to have units first and walls second. Yes units have a maintenance but they're much more flexible and ultimately more effective at killing attackers. Walls can be worthwhile sometimes though, and I do build them (or rush-buy them); but only if I'm fairly certain I will have to defend a city and I feel I have enough units.

Genral tips mostly to get a good spot at emperor:

- Steal worker. By turn 30 on emperor most CS have a worker on their field. Get in range, declare war, captue, make peace. Don't do it twice to avoid faster decay on CS influence.

- Get a healthy number of workers at all time. A good rule of zumb for me is at least 1.5 workers per city, always trying to have more workers than cities most of the time.

- Check for CS quests and actively do all you can.

- Trade your spare luxuries and strat resources often. I don't use more than 2 horses and 2 iron most of the time.

- Always focus on map exporation, getting all CSs, dicover all natural wonders and players is always importan and the sooner the better.

- If having problems of happiness, look for merchant CSs to a quick fix. Try to not get into red numbers before starting with happiness buildings, try to plan a bit ahead with dealig happiness.

- Science is important, on king/emperor you should focus on science a bit. Get National college up on turn 90 aprox and you're done. Also try to grow at all times, if not tradition, don't forget to get aqueducts at about 7 pop.

Steal workers on other AI, even if it's Shaka. They nearly always offer peace a few turns later. You avoid CSpenalty. It means you can have quests and influence earlier.
If you need a workers and only CSallow it (hello archipelago), choose faith or military CS rather than maritime or cultural.

Workers are a early key, as someone write it here, it's a pity to see such many unimproved tiles work by a city. Cities + 50 % is a good mark. 4 to 5 for 3 cities, 6 for 4. You can disband useless workers after.

If happiness is an issue, buy a lux to AI (8 or 9 gpt). Use CS if you have no else choice.

Begin to micromanage your cities, manually use specialist, specially in scientific building. Rationalism and Secularism are must have policies, whatever is your victory goal.

Mozzington said:

Forget about wonder spam.

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I'm not sure about this. I usually play on Immortal difficultly, but still build tons of wonders.

Exterminate the Russians, Iroquois, or Romans as quickly as possible

About worker stealing...

Yes it can often be worth stealing from an AI but it's a big decision to make. I want to be sure the map is open enough to allow me to still meet other AI's and hopefully have trade routes with someone else. I also steal knowing that it can lead me into a long war for which I will need to build early military. If you avoid taking cities and just snipe their units you can win that war and make them pay for a peace deal eventually. If you're too close to each other this will often be the best plan since a successful early war of this type will leave you with a weak neighbour who will even try to be your friend.

You can also just steal one worker and sign peace 5-10 turns later, as long as you don't settle any cities first. Thing is, the AI will demand a "complete capitulation", which means you must give them all your cities other than the capital to make peace.... but you don't have any any other cities to offer so they just give you the peace for free.

A safer plan is generally to steal from a city state. If you do this, don't make peace right away! I often just DoW the first CS I meet, as long as the terrain is feasible for stealing. If you stay at war, you can keep stealing workers from the CS for as long as you like almost... I often don't make peace until T100 or so, once I have enough workers. There's nothing better the CS could give you than 3-4 workers, trust me!

You can even steal both from a CS and an AI, and I have done so. The thing is that if you do it early enough, you won't have met anyone, so no diplo will actually be hurt. Just make sure you never DoW more than two CS's!

Forget about going for the Great Library and a lot of other major early wonders. You won't get it.

Learn exactly how much your resources are worth and sell them asap. For example, you can get 240 gold for a lux (providing you have DOF). You can get 45 gold for iron/horses or 2 gpt each EACH. Early on this money is vital for growth.

It's 1.5 gpt per strategic resource, not 2 each.... so you can sell a pair of horses/iron/etc for 3 gpt. Therefore they're best sold in even quantities (2,4,...) instead of odd quantities.

Luxuries are normally sold for 7 gpt to non-friends - when the AI offer less it's a sign they don't like you. I've also found out that it's actually 7.5 gpt for a luxury - if you offer two luxuries together the AI is willing to pay 15 gpt, instead of 14 as you might expect.

Don't buy embassies for cash - they're priced at 35 gold between friends, but can always be had for 1 gpt instead (cheaper).

Also just generally try to be aggressive with selling your stuff. Don't hold onto 2 iron because you think maybe, sometime 15-20 turns from now you might want to build a swordsman or two. Strategic resources can usually be bought back for the same price you sold them, not to mention acquired from CS's, so there's little risk in selling them away. Selling your last few luxuries can be riskier, so a little planning is needed there; at least try to sell off singles which you know you're going to get an extra copy of soonish.

Main point is to remember it is 4 X game. One think many people forgetting is 3rd X, eXploit.
As you move up in difficulty the more important this become.
On deity it is practically the solo focus. So, seek ways to exploit Ai in any way possible, starting form worker steal, diplomacy, trade et...

hr_oskar said:

It's 1.5 gpt per strategic resource, not 2 each.... so you can sell a pair of horses/iron/etc for 3 gpt. Therefore they're best sold in even quantities (2,4,...) instead of odd quantities.

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Not true with AI who have neutral-positive disposition toward you. Its the exact opposite actually. Its 1.5gpt rounded up, which is 2gpt per. Selling them 2 for 3gpt loses you 1gpt per 2 strategic.

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General tips on improving terrain:

Any tile that has a river running through it you should farm, even if it is a hill. The reason for this is that Civil service will give you extra food. This makes it and farming river tiles very powerful. Normal grassland tiles should be turned into trading posts. You can also do this with plain tiles if you have a lot of other food. The science bonus later in the game is actually quite good and makes very average tiles much better. Also build as few roads as possible. You just want to connect your cities, no more.

Early game:

Try building the following: Scout, worker, warrior, settler, worker, settler, worker. Your number one priority is growth and expansion. City placement is key. You should only ever settle a city at the start of the game if it gives you access to a luxury resource. You can settle other sites later once you have things like religion happiness buffs that mitigate unhappiness problems. You should aim to never be unhappy. If you are unhappy then you are expanding too fast. Don’t build wonders. Better growth and expansion is superior in every way to wonders, which is exactly what you sacrifice when you build them.

Religion:

Dependent on your neighbours. If you have very few neighbours, then this is a high priority. If you have loads, and especially if they focus religion (Maya, Byzantium, Venice), then don’t bother, just use theirs. For your beliefs take tithe and pagodas. Use prophets instead of missionaries unless you build the great mosque.

Trade:

After you have finished growing and expanding, trade should be next on your list of priorities. You get 2 trade routes at the start of the game. Use 1 to feed your capital as this is where you will be building the national college and use the other to trade with a foreign power. Sea trade routes are superior to land ones. Try and have 1 city that is costal and has good access to other powers and make this your trade capital (does not have to be your capital city). Build all your cargo ships and run all of them from here and build markets, banks and stock exchanges here as soon as they become available.

Social policies:

Take tradition first and finish it. IMO the best tree to take next if you can is patronage, especially if you plan on staying out of wars. Pay particular attention to the quests offered by city states and complete as many as you can. Having 4 solid city state allies is a massive advantage and they also act as a buffer between you and the AI. Rationalism is the next you should pick.

War:

Don’t start one. Play defensively at the start. You should only war if you fail to expand sufficiently at the beginning. When you hit the renaissance and have access to cannons, then you can start thinking about being aggressive.

Ideology:

Try and pick the one that the AI has picked with the most tourism. If that is not possible, then order is a fairly safe bet.

Victory:

Even with just 3 cities, it is quite possible to get over 1000 beakers per turn by the end of the game. Science is by far the easiest victory condition so aim for that.

Technology:

In general, and if you are not at war, always prioritise science techs (the top of the tree), then money techs (middle of the tree), then culture techs and industry techs. War techs are only useful if you have beelined them and plan on using them. Otherwise they should be purely defensive (Crossbows, composite bowman etc).

Civs:

When going up a level, play as Poland. They are the best IMO. Other easy civs to play as are the Maya and Babylon.

adwcta said:

Not true with AI who have neutral-positive disposition toward you. Its the exact opposite actually. Its 1.5gpt rounded up, which is 2gpt per. Selling them 2 for 3gpt loses you 1gpt per 2 strategic.

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Wow, thanks for the correction -- I've been underpricing my resources for quite a while then.

Magma_Dragoon said:

Exterminate the Russians, Iroquois, or Romans as quickly as possible

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Poland and Greece often run away, too.