My first Deity win! Tips, strategy, and mistakes inside.

After getting comfortable with winning consistently on Immortal, and after several failed attempts at Deity, I finally did it! I won a turn 328 science victory with Babylon (random map which ended up being what I think was a fractal continent). Yeah, original civ I know, but one that I had underestimated previously. I chose science because it seemed like the easiest VC, being the one that is the least interactive. This game my starting plan was:

1)go Tradition, boost growth in my capital at all costs
2)science is king- push great scientists and ignore all other great people, only build cities adjacent to mountains, take the tech lead and profit
3)get just enough culture but generally avoid pushing culture too hard and completely ignore tourism and archeologists (use great artists for golden ages)
4)ignore all world wonders
5)ignore religion
6)don't go wide
7)brownnose all my neighbors and be the least hated civ, pay them to keep them perpetually at war with each other, COMPLETELY neglect my military
8)rush nukes to make other civs afraid of me and reduce their inclination to DoW me

I think the above outline was the path to success in my game, and likely in other games on Deity, although obviously this won't help if you're going for a CV or dom victory. I only ended up with two cities! I think this helped because it kept my happiness in the positive all game and gave me less area to defend. On the downside, you're taking a risk with not getting aluminum or uranium in your territory. I placed academies like mad and made it to the modern era first, taking Freedom. I think Freedom was the best choice purely for the belief tenet of +4 science per academy. Half food from specialists is the other one that helps. Otherwise, you don't get much out of it.

As far as WWs, I ended up snagging the Oracle (ticked the Maya off!). I tried to build the Porcelin Tower, but Egypt stole it from me... and he didn't even have a Rationalism policy listed! I also made it a point to get the Statue of Liberty. After I went Freedom, everyone else started to go Order, so I didn't have much competition for it. I ended up spawning just one great engineer all game, just in time to have him rush the Hubble. And that was the extent of my Wonder building.

William was my neighbor to the north that caused me the most concern, spreading cities like wildfire and going Order. I got cocky near the end and accepted an agreement with Egypt to go to war against William, which ended up being one of my biggest mistakes. That same turn, William made peace with two other civs, and Egypt was on the other side of the map, slowly sending a navy to William's coasts. After William wiped out some of my CSs, he marched towards my capital, with me being unable to negotiate peace for 15 turns due to the deal I made. I had to fire a nuclear missile just targeting his approaching troops. I didn't know he also had nuclear capability, and he quickly shot an A-bomb on my capital in retaliation. I had to restart (my only restart), buy a bomb shelter, and move my other nuke out of my capital in preparation. I was able to negotiate peace after, but by this time, I was about 5 turns away from winning anyhow. I bought the last piece of my ship and assembled it next turn.

So, I think Immortal is my sweet spot. I can at least do some warring at that level. I am interested in getting a CV in Deity, but it seems so much harder with all the wonders you have to rely on and the insane culture output of other civs on Deity.

Moderator Action: Congratulations on your win. Moved to Strategy and Tips as it is more appropriate in that forum.

I wonder how you made to have an AI with nukes. I still never had seen a nuke from AI since my time victory on prince.

My two cents.

1) Liberty tall make it too. It's just another way to play. Harder, but something different. Tradition/Liberty mix is the best as Tommy and Klaskeren showed me. Game is a lot easier with early settlers and free Amphis.
2) 4 cities is really playable. 3 at least if you don't have enough luxs. With pagodas from you're religion or other, you can try 4.
3) Go to Ermitage, and landmarks. Culture allow you to go deep in ideologies. It can ensure you faster and easier victories.
4) Oracle - HS - PP - Sistine are feasible. AI love liberty statue, so if someone took Freedom before you, you're done. Kremlin is easier. And order helps a lot to shorten your game (Iron curtain more than others).
5) Depend of AI religion belief. Sometimes you can have 5th religion (once I had 3th). Sword to plowshare and religious community helps a lot. Also it allows you Great temple, so more faith for GS.
7) Use to trade in priority with you're neighbors. Sell luxs and strategic, send caravans. It' ensure you peace and cheap DoW against other civ. Also, build a landmark in their territories, it can minimize red point for ideologies. Also, propose Artist funding. You have many chances to have it propose by AI and pass. So propose it, so you get a green point for this with early all AI (except China and Russia).
8) It works. Just I never had the time to build Manhattan.

As a successfull immortal player, I will also try to make my first jump in the forecoming weeks.

Tx for the tips.

My only concern is that I genuinly think that CIV is boring without wars, even on non-domination victory in mind, so I might make the game harder than necessary with this belicous state in mind

I just won Deity for the first time too!

Maya, Pangaea, Turn 349, Science Victory.

I was a little less direct about it though and did end up picking up a dozen or so wonders that were off the path...probably cost me. I went to war with Korea and a few other states as well. I found it hard to keep neutral. How did you manage that? I started near spain and aztecs and they just loved to hate me. Luckily I had other friends though. I used a GE on Hubble as well...freaking love that thing!

Great job!

those turn times...
Normally I'd expect deity AI to have launched by then... especially Korea... (t349!???)

1)go Tradition, boost growth in my capital at all costs
-YES

2)science is king- push great scientists and ignore all other great people, only build cities adjacent to mountains, take the tech lead and profit
-sometimes you just don't have mountains

3)get just enough culture but generally avoid pushing culture too hard and completely ignore tourism and archeologists (use great artists for golden ages)
-Bah SV is boring anyway... try CV next time. It certainly helps if you play 2-3 cities and not 4+ though as even in revolutionary wave status you can often still be in the green. But only pick freedom if you're going CV... or you are Venice...(in which case the half hammer cost bonus on factories is irrelevant and you might as well buy the parts with your insane gold) but Order is generally better for SV.

4)ignore all world wonders
-Even Hubble? With tech lead you can certainly grab a handful late game. Early game it depends.

5)ignore religion
-not if you have a good faith-generating pantheon

6)don't go wide
-YES

7)brownnose all my neighbors and be the least hated civ, pay them to keep them perpetually at war with each other, COMPLETELY neglect my military
-Risky. Sure, bribe them, but always be ready for an emergency.

8)rush nukes to make other civs afraid of me and reduce their inclination to DoW me
-A great strat that I use pretty often too when a warmonger is showing signs that he wants my lands and he will not be placated... those nukes will buy you lots of time. Monty is particularly easy to scare despite being a warmonger.

Congratulations on your deity win! However looking a your writeup i see some things which i dont agree on:

Avoid religion: No reason to avoid religion if you can get one, an early pantheon, with +5 faith total can make your religion just fine, and you can get some pretty nice boni from it.

Avoid world wonders: While this generally true, not all wonders should be avoided, leaning tower/porcelain tower/hubble telescope, should all be persued by the player imo.

Planting GS: Generally mathematically it is better to burn most of the GS after you have your research labs up for 8 or more turns, you should plant the first GS with babylon obviously, but i would never plant more than 2-3 academies in any science game, usually i go for 0-1 academies, when i dont play babylon.

dont go wide: You definately want more than 2 cities, at least 4 cities is good for a science game, its just worth it.

Completely neglecting millitary: while you can do this in the lategame, it is very important to have some units in the early game, mainly for City state quests, but also for scouting, worker stealing, and barb protection

ideology: science wise, order and +25% science from factories, is sronger than planting academies and going freedom.

Wow, I just won my first Deity game on turn 243 SV and Korea was right on my tail....I guess games can vary a lot!