Deity: how to do everything?

Hello everyone.

Some might remember my previous post a month ago about gathering tips for a Civ IV player wanting to jump into Civ V.

Thanks to this forum, I'm now able to consistently beat Deity (which really makes me feel like Civ V is much easier than IV, as in Civ IV emperor was already a huge challenge where Deity here feels "hard" but not insane).

However, as I read a lot of threads, some things bug me. Even when playing on Deity, it seems like some players are able to do everything:

• Rush into accoustics for early renaissance
• Get all the techs you need beforehand
• Mow the IA with CB or XB
• Build the oracle
• Have enough culture to finish Rationalism fast
• Make war
• Make internal trade route and sill have a huge income
• Build Petra
• etc.

Though focussing on one thing is easy, I have yet to understand how one can do all of this.

Take the Oracle for instance. If I rush Philosophy, I am potentially putting myself behind because I am missing some techs to work my tiles. Besides, building the oracle is a huge hammer investment when you could be building a settler or useful buildings. Finally, the IA seems to build the Oracle extra fast (though sometimes the IA just never builds it for some reason) and is as hard to beat at it as trying to build the Great Library.

Now, let's talk about war. Apparently, we are supposed to be able to simply stomp the IA with CB/XB. First thing is, the IA seems to pump out so many units that even passing the line takes a metricton of turns. And even if you do pass the lines (because you have paid 2 other IA to help you in your war to keep your target busy), cities simply take off one of your unit per turn and take a of turns to get to 0 HP.
Though ranged units are really great at fending off the IA in sufficient number when you are defending, I don't see myself "winning" any war: even if I manage to snag a capitol, the investment required is way too high.

Quick point on "stealing workers". Stealing workers to an IA results in instant killing my unit in Deity, on top of having a war to deal with (which means hammers to invest into more archers) and a mortal ennemy for the rest of the game. Stealing a worker to city-states simply means I won't be able to get any city-state at all as the penalty is so harsh.

Last exemple, trade routes. How the hell are you supposed to keep your economy afloat and your science going if you use your first trade routes for food? How the hell are you supposed to "rush buy all science buildings", buy city-states, or anything gold related if you don't have trade route? Heck, how are you even supposed to get science in the begining if you don't make those juicy traderoutes with the IA's capitol?

Anyway, as much as I read posts, I feel like people have unlimited amount of food, hammers, culture, happyness, science and gold all at the same time, with all 4 cities founded on perfect spots with 2 different lux each and loads of food and hills, when I struggle finding spots for my cities with even 1 different lux each. And don't even get me started on Liberty: I have yet to see any advantage to make more than 4 cities as diminishing returns are so harsh and as it is impossible to find enough different luxuries to keep your happyness up (but please do prove me wrong on this, I'm genuinly intrested in not playing Tradition, but the other choices currently feel way too weak for me).

Question is simple: how do you do this?
Please teach me.

You need no wonder to win. So every wonder is a bonus, not a a condition to win.

AI is a dumb. With experience, you'll find it weakness and how to abuse of it. For example, it's easier for me to stay in happiness and swim in wealth all the game on Immortal or Deity than on Prince or King.

Oracle. If Mayas or Egypt are on the map, don't go for it. Otherwise, you'll have it before T90. If you can't just don't try it. This wonder are useful, on deity, to end tradition faster if your culture is slow. You can end Tradition and have a pretty fast rationalism over without Oracle. Cultural CS are more important. So do quest and keep them ally.

War is not so terrible, except when you are on an archipelago map and your neighbor send its navy T60 against you. Never ever settle on flat land near an AI, same thing for your capital if it can me reach easily by units (AI prioritize your capital). Build a wall on frontier cities.
Bribe AI to make war each other. Warmonger are your best friend is early game. Napoleon, Cesar can make a war for only 5 to 10 gpt. Sometimes, it's a really good deal when this war last all the game.
If you can't, upgrade your archer to CB then to XB. Target first ranged units (archers, catapults, trebuchet). AI can hardly take you city with only melee units. Check each turn, if that AI offer a peace deal. There's a bug here. If it proposes peace and demand all your cities but you cap, you can have a peace deal. Remove your cities and just let peace deal for 10turns. Propose. Here you have a peace deal. If you don't want to exploit this bug. Hang on, there's 3 archers and 3 swordmen to kill.

«Stealing workers» will nearly never make a mortal ennemy for the rest of the game. In all way, if an AI doesn't want to make peace after this stealing, it would, in any case, march on your cities. So, get those workers, and prepare for war. Steal a worker from one only CS. Don't make peace immediately. If you don't, you'll be able to steal other workers without penalty from other CS.

Gold? It's where you need to learn how to evaluate a map and some techs. AIs have plenty gold and luxs on Deity. So if you have a lot of luxs, sell your extra copies for 7 gpt or 240 gold. Iron and horses are useful for gold nearly all the game. Issue for gold is when you settled your cities and start to improve them (lib, grany, shrine). Gold begin to be low. So improve first luxs and strategic ressources before making farms. No need to growth if you're running at last in happiness issue. A lux from an AI is 9 gpt. A strategic ressources sell to AI it's 2 gpt per unit (sell them one by one) or 45 gold per unit.

Some AIs are more friendly then other. India, Byzantium, Korea offer DoF fast. Just sell them some luxs or ressources and DoF will come.

Tech fast with RA's, there are useful on Deity. Trade route are useful to leach bpt in the beginning.

Don't be impress by power players, there are from another planet. Practice to win, then you'll realize how to win under T300 in each victory condition, then T275, then you'll, you too, come from another planet.

That's a great post MemoryJar and I subscribe every word in it, having gone through that trip myself over the last 6 months. I continue to be amazed by how generous people are in this forum with their time and their advice. The only thing I would add is to encourage Alleria to play the HOF gauntlets and GOTM, all the posts really come alive if you have played the map or gauntlet in a competitive setting, the learning is great and its a lot of fun.

Sell your strategic resources for 2gpt is huge! Also, ai loans 25 gold per one gpt, which will help rush buy your science buildings. Try to get roads connected ASAP.

Please don't do petra unless you have desert folklore and desert mines...even then it's such a huge gamble. The only wonder that I think is must-have on deity is PT, but maybe it's because I like playing peaceful and get RAs.

run cargo ships whenever possible, they're WAY better than caravans. It's also good to make friends with neighbors so they send you trade routes and you can keep yours internal. Scouting is quite important and you need to pit the AIs against each other if you find them amassing a large army near you.

Alleria, I'm not sure what you mean about consistently beating Deity, so if you're winning more than half your games, that's a bigger ratio than me, so don't think I'm telling you what to do or my advice is gospel, but I NEVER pay the AIs to war with my victims. I pay the victims to war with my 'friends', then denounce them next turn, and DoW them the turn after that. That way you part with very little and, when it works, the other AIs hate the 'victim' for being such an aggressive a-hole. But sometimes you just cannot get the AIs to war with one another. In that circumstance, there is nothing wrong with resigning yourself to a war-based economy and going all stompy.

Though focussing on one thing is easy, I have yet to understand how one can do all of this.

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Wrong, both parts, in my view. Focussing is tough, and getting everything desirable achieved will never work exept in dream scenarios.

Since you can rarely allow to neglect everything focusing is most times about where to make the cut. When it comes to tech orders for instance. A few days ago i wrote something about focusing on navigation when there are serveral coastal empires on the map.

With a vulnerable coast i may skip workshops to hurry to frigates was basically what i wrote. That evening i had a game with exactly this scenario, small pangea, 6 players, 4 coastal capitals. Mine was somewhat defendable but not safe at all. There even was a huge warning sign: I ran and lost against a very strong player for the great lighthouse.

Still workshops didnt make the cut; i built them which was a gamebreaking mistake. My first caravel soon encoutered the navy that was already on its way to capture my cap.

Memoryjar said:

Steal a worker from one only CS. Don't make peace immediately. If you don't, you'll be able to steal other workers without penalty from other CS.

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Wow, didnt know that. Does that work in multiplayer as well?

One big tip: Use the Enhanced User Interface! It's incredibly helpful. It's a lot easier to play well when you always have something on the screen telling you when AI's have Luxuries available to trade. It's a lot easier to manage your tiles when you're getting a notification every single time your borders expand. It's a lot easier to remember to get We Love the King Day when every city has an icon telling you what resource it wants. Using the EUI just makes you play better.

Also, as for war: It's just about practice. If you half-ass your investment in army, you won't get anywhere. And if you overinvest in army, you stunt your development. You just need to practice and eventually you'll get a feel for the sweet spots. My personal target for when I want to warmonger is 8 Crossbows around turn 100-110.

Manpanzee said:

One big tip: Use the Enhanced User Interface! It's incredibly helpful. It's a lot easier to play well when you always have something on the screen telling you when AI's have Luxuries available to trade. It's a lot easier to manage your tiles when you're getting a notification every single time your borders expand. It's a lot easier to remember to get We Love the King Day when every city has an icon telling you what resource it wants. Using the EUI just makes you play better.

Also, as for war: It's just about practice. If you half-ass your investment in army, you won't get anywhere. And if you overinvest in army, you stunt your development. You just need to practice and eventually you'll get a feel for the sweet spots. My personal target for when I want to warmonger is 8 Crossbows around turn 100-110.

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Agreed on both accounts. EUI makes the game so much more user friendly. Hovering over the happiness icon to see who has was luxuries is amazing. No visiting every screen just to see who may have something.

I've never been a warmonger and used to hate warring when I saw giant swarms of dudes on my door step. Now I just try and bribe them into another was or know which dudes to take out first and once they get mowed down it's no big deal and time to go on the offensive.

InfoAddict's pretty cool too.

tschukki said:

Wow, didnt know that. Does that work in multiplayer as well?

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Yes.

Make sure that your worker can be sent outside the cs pretty rapidly. Knocking down a worker in a corner where you need some turns to get out from there can be catastrophic for you if you don't pay attention. You don't want to lose a worker because you stayed at war with the cs. This is why you need to steal a worker very rapidly before he makes units to defend his territory.

Memoryjar's post is very good. That's an interesting way of looking at it, that Immortal or Deity are actually easier in some ways than Prince or King because the AI actually have lots of gold for you to fleece, CS put out workers faster for you to capture (though I'm uncomfortable doing this), etc. Even that powerful warmonger you're so scared of can be sicced on someone else for 5 gpt. And of course when the AI is competitive with you or ahead of you in tech, research agreements are more useful, trade routes give you science (instead of just giving THEM science), and your spies can steal techs from them.

First things first, thank you for your insightful inputs.

I came to the conclusion that wonders are to be entierly avoided on divinity, exept if you are far ahead. Early on, the opportunity cost of building a wonder is very high (compared to e.g. getting a settler or a library), and chances are the AI is getting a shot at it too. I now think wonder have uses only later, under very specific condition (being ahead in tech, having nothing else interesting to build for the moment, getting a value for the victory condition you are trying to reach, etc.).
I think I did get Oracle on my current game as Spain, but I left wonders entierly untill I was so far ahead in tech with up-to-date buildings and army that there was no opportunity cost of building wonders and no risk of having it getting stolen by the AI.

Coming from Civ IV, I abuse bribery. I'm baffled at how cheap DoW are with warmongers. On turn 200, I'm swimming into gold and luxuries, and Chaka only asked for 2gpt to declare war on the biggest threat. However, it seems that non-warmongers are absolutely impossible to convice for a DoW.

Stealing workers is very random imho. In my current game, I stole Boudica's two first workers with my warrior and my scout. In many other game, I cannot even get close to steal one.
Same goes for stealing to CS. If you meet too many CS before they get their first worker, the penalty is way too harsh.

I've donwloaded EUI also. It is great in many regards, but really bad in some others. E.g. the unit column on the left is very anoying. I'll give a try to InfoAddict once I'm more used to EUI.

Also, one thing I had not understood before is how good the Guilds are (Writters / Artists / Musicians, in that order). Now that I know, I'm building them every game.

Finally, I do not understand why so many people advice building shrines. Even with their low hammer cost, getting them up early is a VERY high opportunity cost, for something with a VERY LOW value. It's okay having one in your capital if your land makes a pantheon appropriate, but the computer spends so much time spamming faith that you have 0 chance to get your religion behind your borders. That one great person you will buy at the end of the game is not worth so much investment in the early game.

Alleria said:

First things first, thank you for your insightful inputs.

I came to the conclusion that wonders are to be entierly avoided on divinity, exept if you are far ahead. Early on, the opportunity cost of building a wonder is very high (compared to e.g. getting a settler or a library), and chances are the AI is getting a shot at it too. I now think wonder have uses only later, under very specific condition (being ahead in tech, having nothing else interesting to build for the moment, getting a value for the victory condition you are trying to reach, etc.).
I think I did get Oracle on my current game as Spain, but I left wonders entierly untill I was so far ahead in tech with up-to-date buildings and army that there was no opportunity cost of building wonders and no risk of having it getting stolen by the AI.

Coming from Civ IV, I abuse bribery. I'm baffled at how cheap DoW are with warmongers. On turn 200, I'm swimming into gold and luxuries, and Chaka only asked for 2gpt to declare war on the biggest threat. However, it seems that non-warmongers are absolutely impossible to convice for a DoW.

Stealing workers is very random imho. In my current game, I stole Boudica's two first workers with my warrior and my scout. In many other game, I cannot even get close to steal one.
Same goes for stealing to CS. If you meet too many CS before they get their first worker, the penalty is way too harsh.

I've donwloaded EUI also. It is great in many regards, but really bad in some others. E.g. the unit column on the left is very anoying. I'll give a try to InfoAddict once I'm more used to EUI.

Also, one thing I had not understood before is how good the Guilds are (Writters / Artists / Musicians, in that order). Now that I know, I'm building them every game.

Finally, I do not understand why so many people advice building shrines. Even with their low hammer cost, getting them up early is a VERY high opportunity cost, for something with a VERY LOW value. It's okay having one in your capital if your land makes a pantheon appropriate, but the computer spends so much time spamming faith that you have 0 chance to get your religion behind your borders. That one great person you will buy at the end of the game is not worth so much investment in the early game.

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3 thoughts:

1. I keep reading how some have difficulty stealing workers. I don't get this. I don't consider myself especially brilliant at this (or any other) tactic, but I ALWAYS get at least 1 early worker steal from a civ and CS.

2. GW's and GA's are awesome when used well. GM's…..not so much (unless going for CV). I often don't bother with Musician's Guild.

3. I disagree about shrines being low value. If I think I'm getting a religion (good faith terrain bonus) I prioritize. I also often take Feed the World as that gives me the extra incentive to get shrines and temples, especially in later expos. Even without going Piety, that's an extra 800-1000 faith, which can be very powerful early and late. I've pulled out games at the last second simply by being able to faith buy a late GE or GS. It's a huge difference maker.

^
1. I wouldn't say always...just in case you spawn next to Shaka Greece Monty

2. GMs are not useful unless you want CV, but the guild is nice nonetheless because of the culture and potentially science.

3. Agree, early game faith buildings are great unless you warmonger. being able to accumulate faith to buy great people is extremely important, especially when you can get 3 out at the same time (5000 faith).

Sessy said:

^
1. I wouldn't say always...just in case you spawn next to Shaka Greece Monty

2. GMs are not useful unless you want CV, but the guild is nice nonetheless because of the culture and potentially science.

3. Agree, early game faith buildings are great unless you warmonger. being able to accumulate faith to buy great people is extremely important, especially when you can get 3 out at the same time (5000 faith).

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1. If I'm next to one of those early-game warmongers, stealing their workers becomes my #1 priority. Slow down their buildup, stay at war with them as long as possible. Cripple the bastids, says me.

2. Yeah, GM's also do help with CS requests, so I'll change my statement on them a bit.

3. Funny how few people use Holy Warriors. That was my favorite belief when I was solely a warmonger. I don't like how the game doesn't do a good job of $ vs faith conversion here, but it can really make a difference at times.

Alleria said:

First things first, thank you for your insightful inputs.

I came to the conclusion that wonders are to be entierly avoided on divinity, exept if you are far ahead. Early on, the opportunity cost of building a wonder is very high (compared to e.g. getting a settler or a library), and chances are the AI is getting a shot at it too. I now think wonder have uses only later, under very specific condition (being ahead in tech, having nothing else interesting to build for the moment, getting a value for the victory condition you are trying to reach, etc.).
I think I did get Oracle on my current game as Spain, but I left wonders entierly untill I was so far ahead in tech with up-to-date buildings and army that there was no opportunity cost of building wonders and no risk of having it getting stolen by the AI.

Coming from Civ IV, I abuse bribery. I'm baffled at how cheap DoW are with warmongers. On turn 200, I'm swimming into gold and luxuries, and Chaka only asked for 2gpt to declare war on the biggest threat. However, it seems that non-warmongers are absolutely impossible to convice for a DoW.

Stealing workers is very random imho. In my current game, I stole Boudica's two first workers with my warrior and my scout. In many other game, I cannot even get close to steal one.
Same goes for stealing to CS. If you meet too many CS before they get their first worker, the penalty is way too harsh.

I've donwloaded EUI also. It is great in many regards, but really bad in some others. E.g. the unit column on the left is very anoying. I'll give a try to InfoAddict once I'm more used to EUI.

Also, one thing I had not understood before is how good the Guilds are (Writters / Artists / Musicians, in that order). Now that I know, I'm building them every game.

Finally, I do not understand why so many people advice building shrines. Even with their low hammer cost, getting them up early is a VERY high opportunity cost, for something with a VERY LOW value. It's okay having one in your capital if your land makes a pantheon appropriate, but the computer spends so much time spamming faith that you have 0 chance to get your religion behind your borders. That one great person you will buy at the end of the game is not worth so much investment in the early game.

Click to expand...

*Some* wonders are very useful to get. For example, if going Liberty, Pyramids is a must-have--easy to get and the free workers almost pay for the wonder. Oracle is another nice wonder that I build in 50-75% of my games. LToP and PT are the other two that I want, and FP if diplo victory. Hubble of course if SV. CV puts a much higher priority on wonders, as there are quite a few with theming bonuses. Past that, though, on Immortal/Deity most other wonders simply aren't worth the risk and opportunity cost.

Also, InfoAddict doesn't really change the UI. It just adds an additional option to the drop-down menu to the left of the policy button, which gives you detailed info on your and other civs' demographics, and how you compare to the rest of the world, in addition to global relations.

59saintdane said:

*Some* wonders are very useful to get. For example, if going Liberty, Pyramids is a must-have--easy to get and the free workers almost pay for the wonder. Oracle is another nice wonder that I build in 50-75% of my games. LToP and PT are the other two that I want, and FP if diplo victory. Hubble of course if SV. CV puts a much higher priority on wonders, as there are quite a few with theming bonuses. Past that, though, on Immortal/Deity most other wonders simply aren't worth the risk and opportunity cost.

.

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I don't think I've ever gotten LToP on Deity. It may be the best damn Wonder of them all (because it pays for itself), but I don't get how to tech path that without undue sacrifice. I'd love to hear examples of how that can be done.

The only 2 early wonders you can reliably have a chance at on Diety in my experience is the Pyramids & possibly Oracle.
Mausoleum is not too bad as well but sometimes it does go early.

Petra - well one Diety game no AI capital spawned next to desert so I snagged it around turn 120 in a new city I planted near a desert (I never planned to get it, I just realized late on that no AIs had it!)

Of course if you want to have a better shot at getting wonders you can stack the map with warmongering Civ's like Attila, Shaka, Monty, Rome, Germany etc...

These Civs often put their early policies into Honor and they focus on armies and the bottom half of the tech tree leaving you with a higher chance of getting wonders on the top side of the tree. Of course there is also a chance this can backfire on you but it can be worth a try.