How to completely dominate in Deity mode

ntgt13

Chieftain
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
1
I just dominated a CivRev game in Deity mode. Here's how I did it:

1. First you need to be the Chinese, they are the fastest starting civ around. The only 2 civs that can build a settler right after a city was created are the Romans and the Chinese. I like the Chinese better because their cities can use 3 tiles while producing a settler instead of 2.
2. Set your settlers for your first city to 2 forrests and a grassland and build 2 warriors to scope out the area and capture barbarian tribes. then all of your cities should build nothing but settlers until you run out of space. If your city is too small to build settlers focus the city on growth. if it is large enough to build settlers focus on production. science should be tertiary at the beginning. Feel free to surround other civs, It isolates them so that they can't trade science with each other.
3. You should try to get democracy as quickly as possible for 2 reasons. This shouldn't be too hard for the Chinese because they get writing and literacy for free. Democracy of course and pikemen. Once you have Democracy, switch to it and put an army of pikemen in all of your border cities. Don't worry, Everybody will declare war on you so you won't have to worry about not being able to declare war on others.
4. Try to get the first 100 gold as quickly as possible as you get a free settler when that happens. Once that happens, connect all of your cities with roads and do lots of science trading. Make sure all your opponents have the same technologies so that can't trade with each other.
5. After you filled in all available space. Switch all of your cities to focus on growth. And once you have pikemen armies, start building city improvements: temples, libraries, growth buildings and production buildings first.
6. After democracy, you next stop is Mass production because of the modern infantry. Once you have modern infantry put an army in each city.
7. After that, next stop is Automobile for the Artillery. Once you have Artillery, switch to conquest mode. Make lots of Artillery armies. First, give the artillery infiltration then the blitz abilities. And take over enemy cities and fast as you can. Make sure you have a couple modern infantry armies protecting the Artillery.
8. Once you've taken over all but one enemy capital and sufficiently maimed your last enemy. You are free to choose whatever victory you want.

In summary: Fill in as much space as possible, stay ahead of the defense curve with Pikemen and Modern infantry, become a democracy as soon as possible, don't conquest untill you have Artillery and then go all out (don't use tanks).

I played this strategy in deity mode recently and lead the whole game accept for one time the Roman's caught up only to be destroyed by my artillery quickly thereafter.
 
On Deity it's very easy to go to war with Knights, Catapults, Cannons and Tanks before you get Artillery. I can usually win every game before 1000 AD if I try hard enough, simply because the AI are so poor at defending.
 
Uhm how many civs were you up against? because i went with a very large map with epic game on emperor difficulty having 11 civs got raped but still doing well though....
 
Building that much military seems a waste of time and resources.
My advice would be to build one good defensive army for each opponent that you are at war with.
Placed in the proper location, that is enough at least 9 times out of 10.
I do not really build military. I develop my science and gold production, and rush the military needed where it is needed when it is needed.
 
Quite late to the party, but for any newer players actually seeking helpful Deity advice, these are mostly terrible and some extremely inefficient tips.

1.) The Chinese are indeed a fantastic civ (probably #2 in the game) but not because they can build settlers initially. It's more of their extra pop making them better at fielding horses more quickly that almost any other civ or their bonuses synergizing to super charge their tech rate

2.) Building only 2 warriors is most of the time a worse idea than building more on Deity. It can work online because the AIs are always only at King strength and almost zero threat compared to the human players, but that's not the same obviously. More warriors means more gold collected from various sources (huts, villages, name tiles, or even selling them in dire straights) faster, and getting the 100g settler is more important than anything else except a capture through a walk-in/3 warrior -->army attack. Rule of thumb is 1 per direction you have to explore, and only build less if you KNOW you don't need them (such as on an island or back on a long peninsula with no one to take early).

Also, building settlers immediately as fast as you can is almost always the worst idea initially, as you forgo teching horses or expanding without Republic (from Code of Laws), which is extremely inefficient before 14 techs (Industrial Era). Even for the Chinese, it's wasteful to pay 2 pop for a settler in early game stage. Immediate settler builds are normally only a last resort for non-Rome: if it isn't feasible to collect 100g any time soon, you can't walk-in on any of the AIs, or if they are all so far away you can't take them or collect 100g before they get archer armies (~2100BC) making teching HBR fruitless, then your best bet often ends up being simply growing to 3 and producing a settler to get a second city ASAP to boost your tech rate. After which, you can then reevalute whether you can brute force an AI with multiple horse armies, tech to Writing for Spies to make archer armies easier to beat, or simply go for mass expand.

Lastly, the final major fault with this point: You do NOT want to settle your cities up against the AI's borders at all, least of all if you are expanding a lot! Borders are determined by culture generated (empire total) / population (empire total). Because the AI grows more and expands less, it will have a better ratio of culture to pop than you if you expand everywhere, making it extremely likely they will be a cultural level above you. Those cities you settle against their borders will just be choked or quickly flip to the AI once they bump up above beyond "disgusting" and their border expand while yours do not. And don't think that building culture buildings is a feasible response; considering the way the border mechanics work and how weak culture is anyway if you expand a lot, they're literally a waste of hammers to build. Note also that borders have nothing to do with tech trading among AIs (only gold they have, and only a strongly universally desired tech such as Nav or Monarchy really gets traded) which is extremely rare in the first place. Deity AIs are much more interested in screwing you over or demanding things from you than each other or trading for the most part.

3.) Democracy only becomes a priority after your expansion phase is done, or mostly done. Your expansion phase may be delayed, or ignored entirely, if you choose to play aggressively with horse armies in the early game and have a lot of success. An exception is if you're already at 14 techs, where any civ can found 4 pop cities so they still expand well. In any case, you should almost never consider Democracy before CoL unless you're Greek or get the Great Pyramid from Angkor Wat, where you can use immediate Democracy access to speed up initial teching towards horses/CoL.

Pikemen are indeed a solid defensive unit for quite a good chunk of the game but you hardly need an entire army in every border city. Only build what you need, rule #1. Cities under direct threat of attack are fine to have armies in, but generally you can choke the AI further out with strategically placed single pikes or even archers, so long as they defend for 3 turns and erect fortifications. Ideally, the enemy won't ever approach your cities anyway except by boat by preventing their units from moving closer even outside your borders. Fog busting is important to this tactic since the AI cheats and teleports units around in it though.

4.) Getting 100g ASAP for the free settler is sound advice. Building unnecessary roads and trading with the AI haphazardly is absolutely not!

Roads do nothing in this game except give free movement to units. Any units. Meaning, including AI units at war with you, running around in your territory. There are no economic advantages of ANY sort from roads, and sans the Romans, are generally too expensive to bother building in the early game where they'd be most helpful (by cutting down on extreme distances between two cities for aggressive rush purposes). It's almost always in your best interest to do without roads: the gold is better spent elsewhere or saved for an early milestone (100, 250, 500) and since AIs WILL be getting aggressive with you on Deity at some point, you don't want to help them move between your cities freely. Late game, it's largely irrelevant when you can start fielding multiple armies per turn, but still, why give yourself the headache and them the easier time?

Trading with the AI is to be done sparingly on Deity. They already have handicaps on research and production and don't need any help keeping up with you. There are only two situations in which you should EVER trade tech to the AI a) to get some gold to meet a crucial milestone (usually only the 100g milestone is worth it) or to rush an emergency unit for defense or b) to bleed their treasury of funds before attacking them (most effective in the early game when they have few/only one city that you will quickly conquer) so they don't rush reinforcements.

The idea of trading away your tech to bring the AIs into tech parity with each other "so they can't trade with each other" is frankly moronic and completely misses the point that YOU are supplying them the tech they want anyway! Point aside that they hardly ever trade with each other in the first place, it's not important to attempt to monopolize their gold through selling techs either since they will earn it back extremely fast, especially on Deity with their handicaps!

5.) While I myself am a sucker for growing my cities, unless they have a good resource like Whale, Fish or sometimes Cattle, cities are always more efficient simply working as much science as possible even to the point of forgoing growth for the whole game. The diminishing returns on increasing population simply makes it more profitable to work all water constantly; doing the math shows your earn more beakers except in cases where you can grow faster than the normal 1 grassland rate.

The tech rate is thus increased by simply building more cities, and expanding to work as much water as possible. Luckily, in Civ Rev there are zero penalties to having massive amounts of cities, yet it's still faster to build a settler out of a 3+pop city (7 turns) than it is to grow that city on 1 grassland to earn another water tile to work (15 turns). For 2 pop cities in CoL it breaks even (10 turns), meaning simply working 2 water tiles is still the better option than losing turns/beakers by growing without a Whale/Fish, and that continuing to expand is better still as it nets you more total water tiles even if you never grow the now-1 population back.

Again I will reiterate some points: build only what you need. Infrastructure is largely useless except in specific cities for specific tasks. Temples are useless if you expand more than the AI and useless still since the AI cheats its culture anyway. Libraries are not worth it for the hammer cost except for the Greeks and Chinese when they get cheaper, and only when built freely (such as by Engineering's 1st to research bonus, +1 free hammer in all cities) or en masse quickly like under Communism. Growing is inefficient, so Granaries and Harbors are pointless unless they are free. Production buildings only earn back their hammer investment in high production cities. Etc, etc etc. Don't build infrastructure when you could be building more settlers instead to get more water tiles for science/gold. If you reach the point you no longer need science, swap to gold in every city and run the enemy over with mass rushed units.

6.)Mass production is an out of the way tech and the only reason you'd ever need Modern Infantry is to defend against Artillery armies which come later than anything else (the AI even builds Bomber first...), Riflemen can defend against everything else with walls (including Tanks...) and you can get away with only Pikes easily by ending the game after you get Knights or Tanks. If your games are going so long that Artillery armies on your doorstep become a reality, you're playing quite badly or have done something very wrong. And again, multiple armies of defensive units placed willy-nilly all over the place is nothing but wasteful.

7.) Even for bad or new players, Artillery to end the game is extreme overkill and a waste of time. Not to mention it's one of the most out of the way techs in the game and you're only delaying victory by researching them. Most players can handily end the game at Tanks with nothing else as the AI is slow to get Infantry and you can overpower Riflemen in numbers if they have walls. Using naval support or Knights in an earlier window, victory can be achieved even faster much easier, and proper use of Spies makes any attack more successful to the point you can end game after the AIs have pikes with horsemen if you play your cards right. Even Oxfording Bombers is a better idea than going Artillery. The takeaway point is this: It's easier to win the game by capitalizing earlier than later, as the earlier you gain an advantage the more significant it is on the game's outcome.

8.) Uh, sure. But there are many better ways to win earlier than turtling to artillery and ignoring Tanks entirely, which is unequivocally bad advice. Tanks are one of the strongest power spikes in the game in terms of unit match ups, (They dominate everything except Modern Infantry which they can still beat with naval support or Bombers helping out) and getting Tanks ASAP is one of the most reliable ways for a newer player to win. Sure, not everyone may want to play a warfaring strategy, but having a militarily dominant stance over your opponents marginalizes them and prevents them from threatening your victory chances no matter which of the four you want.
 
I have played Civ Rev on ios every now and then and streamlined domination on deity. IMO Isabella is the best leader for quick wins since she starts with galleons which are needed for quick transportation of catapults to far away capitals. My strategy is to walk along the coast until whales are found with at least two forest tiles I can settle by for production. I build one warrior for scouting and then saves the production for barracks, galleon, catapult armies by building something expensive. I then beeline mathematics for the catapults. After building the army I take the capitals from hills or with help of the Infiltration promotion or a great general. My quickest win is 1000AD after having some luck by obtaining a great leader that enabled selecting Blitz and Infiltration promotions for all armies.
 
So the general idea seems to be building cities one way or another.

How close do you build your cities next to each other / how do you guys fill in the limited space on your part of the map?

Like do you guys space it out roughly 4 spaces apart (5x5 accounting for courthouse) or 2 spaces (3x3)?
 
As close as possible.

Spoiler long :
In civ rev it's almost always most beneficial to place cities as closely as you can in order to get simply as many as you can. Put them down two tiles away from each other (1 overlap space between them, minimum distance) and work as much trade as you can with what population they have. Prioritize Code of Laws for more efficient expansion and then Literacy to gain the +1 science per city bonus. If it feels like your space is "limited" you are not expanding nearly fast enough or being aggressive enough to corral the AI with units (remember they can't walk through your units; build early warriors!) as the AI is horrifically slow at expansion unless they cheat with a boat. You should be able to always get more land the AI in every game, unless you don't care to (going for early Domination kills).

I could get very detailed with the argumentation, but in general just DO NOT build courthouses, ignore that consideration as they are too expensive; build 4 more cities with that production instead. There is some waste as they generally won't have enough pop to work every tile between them initially, but there are at least 2 semi-guranteed free pop boosts in all your cities (2000g milestone and Mass Media) and when combined with the greater amount of initial population given when settling past 5 tech era or beyond it's plenty enough.

There are no downsides to more cities (in Single Player), but significant opportunity loss through growing cities (as would be necessary to work more tiles in more spaced out approaches) instead of working either hammers or beakers; you should just generally avoid growing unless you can do it for free while working tech tiles (such as playing Japan/Egypt, or using a Fish/Whale tile) or can grow at an accelerated rate and then stop to work all trade/hammer tiles to make up the downtime (usually requires something powerful like Cattle or Whale resource). This means to work as many tiles as possible, and/or to get as much out of the "(insert resource) per city" boni you need as many cities as possible -- even if you can't work all the tiles at the moment without growing.

Simply put: For 100 hammers you can build 1 city with a courthouse in it, or 5 cities that can work at least 2 tiles their entire lifetime.

To grow a courthouse city to from size 2 to size 10 to match that, you'd have to spend 40 turns growing at the standard rate (as if working all +2food grassland each population) just to begin matching it, but by that point you'd be 40 turns behind in output and couldn't catch up unless you spent even more time to grow beyond 10 tiles....the game is only 193 turns long, can be won in as little 30 turns on Deity easily by Domination, and if not, is generally decided for one of the other three victory types not long after. Taking more than 5 turns to grow a population is frankly not worth it given the amount of time it takes to to return the investment compared to the pace of the game. This is the reason building warriors in the opening is stronger than growing to 3 and expanding: you have to spend 10 total turns doing nothing but growing/regrowing in the capitol, instead of putting out at least 40 more hammers worth of units on the map which can do a lot more than get you a second city by 2900...

If two adjacent cities can only work at most 13 tiles between them because of overlap, that is not a problem if they aren't likely to ever reach size 7. There are common occurrences in my games where a new city can only work two new water tiles -- and it's always worth it, for 20 hammers, since that city will be putting out at least 5 science a turn with the Literacy bonus, and later at least 15 gold and 3 science a turn with the Literacy+University+Industrialization+Corporation boni using Democracy no matter what tiles it works. Every city can do this.

There are exceptions, for individual cities. For example, if you're not going to trick rush the UN/World Bank with 5000k gold and a Great Builder, you're gonna need a high production city to bank hammers for those victory types. You can still generally get around this by waiting to found the city later (so it starts with more population) by a lot of mountains, using your free growth bonuses (2000g, Mass Media, maybe Irrigation) to help it grow and then gold rushing Iron Mine + Factory in it and simply have it bank hammers....it MIGHT be worth it to gold rush a courthouse later here it helps grab more mountain tiles it can work, or if it has several powerful food tiles around to use before you have Railroad done and it can grow once or twice before getting its Iron Mine in place.
 
Top Bottom