Getting an early DOW from the AI on Deity

I seem to get a DOW early from the AI quite a lot, often in BC and I have no idea how to deal with this one.

If you end up next to a warmonger then he dows you on about turn 70. Given the huge start advantage is this ever winnable?

Just tried one starting next to Polynesia and get a turn 70 DOW. Possibly shold not have taken 2 of his workers .

Was a strange really spread out continents map with a lot of space between Spain and Sweden and us to.

My 2c:

If you want to play a game where you will likely be the biggest warmonger (DomV or Warlike CV), then you should have a better army than someone like Captain Underpants on T70. In fact, your aim should be to have conquered his capital and puppeted it.

If you want to play peaceful, then you need to trade with him on the turn that you make peace after stealing the workers (which should help prevent a denouncement), and then, when you see the first sign of his army on the horizon, pay him to DoW someone else.

They have a huge advantage, but they can't manoeuvre troops very well, and if you have 2 CBs per city and an upgraded warrior to sit in front absorbing attacks, you should be able to fend them off, or even better, push them back to their capital and take it.

Have a look at the MadDjinn LP with Spain where he is DoW'ed by Rome at a similar time and not only pushes them back but takes some of their cities.

The worst ones are Shaka who will often make white peace with whoever you pay him to fight, and because of this you can't pay him again to DoW the same leader, so you will have to pay 'double' to fight someone else, and he may not even be willing to, so strong is his lust to take all your cities.

I've gotten to the point where if I roll a map with Shaka, Oda or Monty as a REALLY close neighbor, I restart and march my settler towards their 2nd city and use this trick:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=528946

Yeah did try to bribe him when he turned up with his army, but sweden and spain were too far away. Sweden was not actually reachable by land as there was a natural wonder blocking the 1 tile snaking continent.

Was looking for a good LP of some early warmongering. The two MadDjinn LPs I watched he had no army at all for the first 150 turns or so.

In which case, watch Acken's Babylon HoF video. This is incredible.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13387388

It's entirely winnable. You just need to have an army ahead of time, rather than scrambling to get one when he comes knocking. You can't rely on bribes to save you. It costs money, it feeds the beast, and sooner or later you'll find yourself in a position where there's no way to effectively bribe.

Obviously, if you're building an army early, then you have to sacrifice something. The safest thing to sacrifice, in my opinion, is science. Try building an average of one extra Archer/CompBowman per city before Libraries. This will delay your National College by 10 turns or so, but avoiding death is more important. In general, if you can get 6 or so ranged units and 1-2 melee units, that will be enough. Get 8+ ranged units, and that will definitely be enough.

If you have the defensive position, you shouldn't have to lose any more than a unit or two. The AI will generally focus on bombarding your city and will ram their melee units into the city far before they can actually capture it. This will allow you to whittle down their units, and you should be able to make peace quickly without losing too much stuff. I suspect you aren't asking for peace often enough. Seriously -- you would be shocked at how quickly AIs are willing to make peace in the early game.

Manpanzee said:

It's entirely winnable. You just need to have an army ahead of time, rather than scrambling to get one when he comes knocking. You can't rely on bribes to save you. It costs money, it feeds the beast, and sooner or later you'll find yourself in a position where there's no way to effectively bribe.

Obviously, if you're building an army early, then you have to sacrifice something. The safest thing to sacrifice, in my opinion, is science. Try building an average of one extra Archer/CompBowman per city before Libraries. This will delay your National College by 10 turns or so, but avoiding death is more important. In general, if you can get 6 or so ranged units and 1-2 melee units, that will be enough. Get 8+ ranged units, and that will definitely be enough.

If you have the defensive position, you shouldn't have to lose any more than a unit or two. The AI will generally focus on bombarding your city and will ram their melee units into the city far before they can actually capture it. This will allow you to whittle down their units, and you should be able to make peace quickly without losing too much stuff. I suspect you aren't asking for peace often enough. Seriously -- you would be shocked at how quickly AIs are willing to make peace in the early game.

Click to expand...

The quote above should be saved as a sticky. Absolutely true, and the sacrifice of 10 turn delay for NC maybe means you don't get 1 or 2 Wonders or a SV is 20 turns later (maybe), but at least you are alive and dictating foreign policy instead of the other way around.

My biggest mistake when moving up to Deity was following the "holy scripture" of NC as soon as possible. I never worried about that on Immortal, but found myself at the mercy of bribes my first 20-30 Deity games. Now, I make sure I can defend myself (or try to) and then build infrastructure (I actually mix it up but neglect units less). It's nice to have some firepower.