Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario

Gosh, looks like I'm the worst player ever to play this game!

All these responses about "barely winning on diety" or "winning handily on diety" and I've failed three times in a row on King. How could I possibly be doing so much wrong? It isn't my first time playing Civ 5 either, which makes it even more frustrating. I just won Into the Renaissance as France on Emperor, too.

I've played the same map three times in a row to see if I could win. Got Alexander and a marble tile right next to my settler, which I settled ontop of.

First game: Started Honour to kill Barbs and invade to use Greece's UUs. Doesn't matter, because Ramses gets Oracle, then both of the Cultural and Economic wonders, all before I have unlocked them. He's on the other side of the world from me, so game over. I played it out and even embarked a small fleet to try and invade Memphis...but no chance.

Second Game: Ramses is slower this time for some reason but still gets Oracle. To my surprise, Darius gets Pyramids so things are looking up. I get Aristocracy, the Honour opener, full military tech, and invade a nearby city-state using Hoplites and Archers, as some of the advice above recommended, to get the Military wonders early. I get Statue of Zeus. Ramses beats me to Temple of Artemis by one turn. Then, Gilgamesh beats me to Hanging Gardens as well, also by one turn. I'm building Lighthouse in my second settled city, in an awful coastal location. Darius somehow beats me to Colossus, so I wage a desperate invasion and manage to capture both cities with his wonders.

So I have Statue, Pyramids and Colossus. Ramses has Oracle, Masoleum and Temple. I finish Lighthouse, and a few turns later Ramses finished Great Library. Since he has like 9 cities, he wins.

Third Game: Went Tradition and stayed small. Ramses got 5 wonders before I unlocked any again.

Needless to say the second game was very unlucky but I still don't understand why this is so difficult on King difficulty. Alexander's UA being pretty useless doesn't help matters but I just can't understand what I am doing wrong. How can people ever beat this on Diety?
 
Ugh this is the worst scenario. The very best game I've played I managed 3 wonders, which isn't enough when freaking Darius builds EVERY SINGLE OTHER ONE. If the AI's actually shared wonders this would be a lot more doable but every game I've played it ends up with 1 AI building all of them and the other AI's not doing anything, which is ridiculous.

I wonder if anyone has a Deity save that provides a reasonable start for this that they could share? I've been rolling maps for hours trying to find an Egypt start that seems reasonable and come up with nothing. I tried the Egypt start posted earlier in the thread and it didn't seem that great to me, there's no marble near the capital. If anyone has any other starts they've had success with for this scenario and feels like sharing them I'd be mighty appreciative, rerolling the map over and over again frustrating me beyond reason.

Edit: Scratch that. Naturally, just after posting this, I finally managed to beat it. I once again only got 3 wonders, but I was lucky and this time the AI split the other 6 evenly with 3 AI's each getting 2, so my 3 was enough. Now I just have to do it on the lower difficulties, sigh. Makes me miss the Mongol scenario where winning once on Deity was good enough for all of the achievements. This scenario seems heavily luck influenced on the high difficulties which makes it easily my least favorite scenario so far. Even the fairly boring Polynesia one was better. Oh well, if I can do it on Deity, I can do it on the lower difficulties to finish up this set of achievements.
 
This thread is quite old, but I wanted to post to thank everyone and especially Haphaz for getting me unstuck on beating this on Deity. I was convinced that I needed a perfect start, but after reading Haphaz's post, I used his save and managed to win.

I used a slightly different strategy, starting with monument as my first build, but some of the tips on this thread helped immensely. I also went for the first Tradition policy, as I felt the extra culture would help me get the rest of the policies in Liberty faster.

I went for Oracle first. That took some doing, as Darius kept beating me to it. I was finishing around turn 47, but he was hitting it on 43-45. I kept reloading and slightly adjusting my strategy. The thing that finally worked for me was to take the Wonder-building policy second (I originally didn't want to do that), which got me down to 44 or so, and then to also manipulate the AIs. I made friends with them all early in the game, and then around 25 or so (when I know Darius is building Oracle), I denounced him. The rest of the AIs dogpiled with denouncements, and then I declared war on him. After that, I actually bribed the other AIs into also DOW'ing him. That delayed Darius long enough that I beat him to Oracle.

I built a second city, and with Temples and monuments in both cities, I was able to get enough culture for the culture wonders. Pyramids were relatively easy. The hittites were beating me to it by a couple of turns, but I reloaded, and convinced Darius to join me in declaring war on the Hittites (Darius had made peace with most of the AIs by that point). That delayed the hittites just enough that I got the pyramids. Helicarnassus was even easier, I just hard-built it and was the first to reach that much culture.

However, the plan partially backfired because the wars Darius was in got him Temple of Zeus. I also tried to compete for the financial wonders, as Haphaz had suggested, by trading resources for money, but I was not able to keep pace with the AIs despite my best efforts. Late in the game, I worked hard to be the first to have the 300 xp for the great lighthouse. I started hard-building it, which I finished at turn 124.

At the same time, I came up with an scheme to cut a couple of turns off of that, by founding a third city, buying a temple and monument in it to get the last Liberty policy slightly faster, using that for a Great Engineer, and then rushing the monument. But it wasn't necessary as none of the other AIs were building it. The lighthouse was the last wonder, so I won the game on turn 125.

In the end, I had 4 wonders, Darius had 2 (first tech and xp wonders), Greece had 2, and the Hittites had 1.

A key point for anyone else having trouble with this is that high population is definitely not needed. My capital ended at pop 6, my coastal city at 4. My third city was totally optional and was only size 1.

I feel that getting 5 wonders might be possible on Deity, since I had an unused Great Engineer, by ignoring the financial wonders and getting both culture and both xp wonders, in addition to Oracle. However, winning on Deity was exhausting, so I'm definitely not trying it again.

Now that I have won on Deity, anyone recommend a different civ for Immortal? I want to do a different civ for each difficulty to unlock all the achievements.

Thanks everyone for the help in finally beating this on Deity!
 
I finally beat it on deity. At 4 in the morning...
I think the number one factor is luck. It took me 2 "fresh" starts and dozens of reloads from autosaves. Chose egypt, then made my main city by the red sea with marble and a couple of luxury resources. Immediately made 2 scouts then started on the oracle, and bought a worker as soon as I had the gold. Sent one scout to saudi arabia, the other to africa. Restarted whenever I got something from a hut I didn't like, such as unit upgrades or map reveal in favor of culture and gold. The ruins will change if you wait a turn or two from when you last grabbed them. Got a settler right after oracle to settle near a couple of resources to sell for gold. Then got and bought war chariots to go harass the nearest city state for XP and kill barbs for culture. On my second playthrough after losing the first, the AI was far less organized, allowing me to edge out the culture and war wonders as well.

I had to play perfect and have luck. I also made sure to never finish a wonder until right before somebody else finished theirs. This makes the AI waste time on something that they won't be able to get anyways.
 
Greece makes good candidate for any difficulty because they have 2f 5g nw, isolated location, coast and hilly terrain.

Backstory:
Spoiler :
I was looking for challenge and found out deity wonders of ancient is supposed to be hard. And it is. First I took a look for every starting location and then tried these:

*Normal 4 city tradition as Hittites - just too slow, cant do much because game is over around t110-120
*Egypt wonder building with 3 cities which of 2 pumped out units to capture persia for wonders, too slow
*Warmongering Persia, rush Sumeria, b-line mathematics, go for Athens, get Hittites on the way there (got huge empire, -50 unhappiness with pretty much all luxuries, but couldnt get to Athens fast enough)
*Enter civfanatics->learn about selling gold for gpt and that historical map has new resources on reroll. I had ridiculously starts, absolutely no early production, growth nor luxuries
*Pick Alex
*Way better start than 1st time
*Win


The tale of lucky Greece (WITH PICTURES!!)
Spoiler :


Tech: Mining->Pottery->Calendar->Archery->Animal Husbandry->Masonry->Wheel->Horseback Riding->Sailing->Optics

Got free writing while researching calendar, but I'm not sure you have time to research it otherwise. However it helped with getting more gpt from AI in the beginning. Selling open borders and 12 or 13g for 2 gpt is great way to unlock economy wonders.

BO at Athens: oracle until pop 2, settler, finish oracle, granary, archers on down time and wonders as they come - buy stables or stoneworks if it gives you extra production after you have unlocked Colossus. Just sell some gpt for gold you need. Gold doesn't matter anymore, your goal is Great Lighthouse and then settlers
BO at Sparta: worker, warrior, archers

For Policies I went full tradition BUT Aristocracy last. Oracle was already finished when it became available and skipping monuments will help with everything. Also food, happiness and gold are great. Went for landed elite 3rd, monarcy 4th and aristocracy last. Aristocracy 4th would have been better, but at least take free monuments with oracle. If xp keeps flowing fast af get aristocracy, when struggling get monarcy 4th and sell an extra luxury. *Ignore oligarchy, you dont want to attack anything with the cities*

I lucked out with great start, had marble on hill. And 3 grassland cows +hill sheep. None of those were inside the initial start so I had to work 2 food tile for few turns.

Warrior was sent to scout for city states and ruins. After finding first CS Athens bought closest cow tile. When the second CS was found Athens bought the sheep tile. Now warrior starts to come back to escort settler, warrior came 1 turn late so there is something to imporve :lol: Found 3rd CS when turning back too, so thats nice.

Second city was found on hills too, next to dye and gems, 2 tiles away from Mount Olympos. Selling gold for gpt had still wait some time, Sparta needs that Olympos and it's 180g. After buying Olympos all gold went to Sumer for gpt every turn.

After Sparta was found i had ruins + barbarian camp next to it, bombarded camp, took worker from there and didn't return it. Ruins gave writing which was ok. Pop, real tech or culture would have been best. I didn't want to bother with library anyways because tech wont give too much in this scenario. Archers on down time for Athens were better for me.

Then warrior went back to exploring and saw a tasty worker which he stole. That city state didn't enjoy it but it was ok. I kept war going with them until I got Great Lighthouse. Archers are the way to go and with 2 decent production cities Sparta producing 5 hammers and Athens way more it's easy to make enough of them even that early.

Archers and warrior went all rough->cover(s). Making some flat archers to milk more xp could make sense (flat archers shoot to rough, rough archers to flat if you have to). Also don't be afraid to just throw the units under enemy - you need that xp and you have nothing else to do than units. Often times you should let them hit or even kill your units. If CS runs out of units go attack the city, as long as you have 3 or more units it is enough but idle turns will not be tolerated.

When you get Great General consult the Oracle and then pop GA. While unlocking wonders go for all out production even if it means starving a little bit and if you seem to unlock next wonder before the current one is finished buy forest tiles and chop them.

After doing 5 wonders victory should be pretty much secured but you can make it sure by spamming settlers and inhabit the tiny islands and all land you can get. Also try to grow new cities if possible to maximize the score.



TL;DR

DO ORACLE
SETTLER ASAP (at pop2, pause oracle)
BUY TILES EARLY - SELL GOLD FOR GPT MID GAME - LATE SELL ALL YOUR GPT FOR RUSH BUY
DOW CITY STATE, GET XP
do eco and war wonders

Had to register and share this because this was really fun and something new :)
 
Long time reader, first time poster - had to share/brag about my eventual victory over this scenario.

Hittites, coastal, started on hill (inland sea). Marble,Silver,Wheat, 2x Hill Sheep Start (very good roll). Coastal cap with marble gave me a one-city wonder shop.
Never bothered with expos until I realized Gilgamesh was going to beat me on score - his "multiple cities" and "technology" offset my magic Oracle. (I realized this after he beat me on score by less than 100 pts, triggering *several* save scums). Late game turtle wars with almost everyone to mine the xp for the military wonders.

I ended up splitting all the wonders with good old Gil - Econ and Military for me, Cultural and Science for him, with everyone else stuck in the mud.

Late (~turn 110) settled my second city, didn't even have a worker until ~turn 70 or so - I kept trying to steal from my CS neighbor and having to retreat my starting warrior to keep him alive.

Full tradition, monument>gold+happiness>food, with the wonder bonus trait second to last.

A note on the econ bit- I spent most of the game recycling gold with Gil and Rameses, every time I accumulated 31 gold, I traded it for 1gpt. Note: a friendly AI values gpt at around 31.5 lump sum per 1 gpt (lol, negative interest loan), so if you have 63+ gold in your bank, trade it in multiple 31 gold for 1gpt trade agreements - this kind of snowballs to the point where you're earning 30+ gold every turn that you're flipping *every* turn (a little annoying).

Had to reload end of game after getting swarmed by Alex and his Companion Cav - with 1 turn left on the Great Lighthouse. This caused some rolling back and remembering to bombard before shooting with the garrison (so that tradition's garrisoned unit combat bonus procs).

Oh, and don't forget to trade ALL of your gpt (and luxes) for lump sum before you make a DOW.

One turn autosaves don't hurt either.

Ah, I finally won... anyone want the start save?
 
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