Beating Deity: A Peaceful Cultural Victory

snarzberry

snarzberry

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Ok, you know you've been waiting for it - someone to post an article about how to beat Deity with a strategy that isn't dependent on bloodshed, large empires and being a maniacal puppet-master/dictator. Well, here it is!

The Super-Capital, Peaceful, Deity, Cultural Victory

I think many of you who, like me, were builders in Civ 4 will enjoy playing this strategy. It focuses on areas that are basically ignored, or at least sparingly utilized, by most people playing Civ 5 out there, namely - Great Engineer generation, Wonder construction and Diplomacy.

This strategy is also a One City Challenge strategy that can win against Deity because, you guessed it, we will not be expanding beyond our capital. Nor will we be engaging in war of any kind. Nor will we build a military unit of any kind, and actually we will build no units other than our initial worker. Don't believe you can get away with that on Deity? Read on...

Disclaimer: This strategy utilizes managing Research Agreements (RAs) to give the best chance of providing desirable techs. IMO this is no more an exploit than strategic teching with trading in mind in Civ 4. Please do not use this thread as a place to discuss whether or not it's exploitative. If you think it is, just don't play this way.

This strategy should work on any map type but I've used it on Standard Speed - Continents/Pangaea - Deity

This guide will also dispel two commonly held myths about Deity level.

MYTH 1: You can't build any early wonders, the AI gets there too fast.
MYTH 2: Peace with your neighbors is impossible without a strong military.

First things first - What Civ to use? I've used this strategy on Deity successfully with three Civs. Egypt, Arabia and Siam. Egypt and Arabia are best, but for the first attempt I recommend using Egypt.

Overview

Spoiler :
Here's how it works. Victory will be achieved by developing a super-capital city in which is built exactly these World Wonders - Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, the Sistine Chapel, the Louvre and Cristo Redentor. It's possible to pull this off by careful generation of Great Engineers who will build the last three of these wonders, by utilizing two crucial mid game 3-tech slingshots and by guiding RAs down a specific tech path. At the end of the game, probably around 1800 CE the capital will be an awesome sight to behold!


The Opening

Spoiler :
The first 30 - 40 turns are all about netting Stonehenge (SH). Tech immediately Pottery and Calender. The build order is monument - worker. This is one of the elements that makes it more likely that SH will be built. Taking monument first means that during the construction of SH the second Social Policy (SP) will become available. Selecting Aristocracy after the initial Tradition will shave a couple of turns off the build time. Grow the capital to size 3 and then stagnate and focus on production. The city can be starved for a few turns when SH is nearing completion to save another turn.

There are a few variables here that depend on what type of terrain the capital occupies and what bonuses (if any) are received from ruins. If the worker is completed before Calendar is researched, good, if not there is a decision to be made. If it's only one or two turns and there is forest tile to chop, finish the worker. Then tech Mining and chop. If there's no good way for the worker to speed up SH then wait until it's completed. Obviously Egypt is best for this. In fact if you do it this way in my experience Egypt is a favorite to build it, and the other Civs are around 50/50. If you're Egypt and all of the conditions are perfect (not even counting getting gifted Pottery from a ruin, which is even better), you'll finish it around turn 32. But if you're on track to finish it by turn 40, you have a good shot at it.

If you fail to build SH either continue playing with another plan, or reload. It's essential to winning this way. Not only because of the base 8 culture per turn, although that is awesome. The Great Engineer(GE) points it generates are paramount.


Tech Path and RA Slingshots

Spoiler :
After SH is built tech Writing - Philosophy (unless there's marble available, in which case tech Masonry first and improve the hex). By now you should have one luxury resource harvested and have met at least one other Civ. Sell them the resource. Use the money along with your savings to buy a Library in the capital and enter into a RA with them. After that Library is bought you will spend all of your money, every coin, on RAs until you know you have enough techs to build Cristo Redentor, which will happen if everything goes perfectly around turn 200. After that, all of your money will be used to buy any Cultural City States on the map. As soon as the Library is bought build the National College.

With your first RA the target is Civil Service. Not because it's an important part of this strategy, it's just an expensive early tech that you want to get out of the way. After completing Animal Husbandry and Trapping, sink a turn of research into the other available techs except CS. Then set to research Theology. As soon as Theology is researched build Angkor Wat (production focus). You'll be surprised that you almost always get it. This helps with border expansion, although you don't truly need a lot of land, but you really want it for it's additional GE generation point.


Education-Chivalry-Acoustics Slingshot

Spoiler :
Hopefully you'll have met at least three Civs by now. With these three Civ research partners you will perform two crucial 3-tech slingshots. The first is the Acoustics Shot. The purpose of this slingshot is to build the Sistine Chapel with your first GE.

Around the time that you're finishing Theology enter into a RA with each of these Civs, one after the other for three consecutive turns. Then tech through the requirement techs for Chivalry, ending in Currency. Make sure all other tech paths are blocked off and make sure you know exactly what turn the RA is due to expire (30 turns from signing) so you can be ready. If you've not made a mistake, and with a little luck, on three consecutive turns you will receive Education - Chivalry - Acoustics. Your first GE will be born around this turn (sometimes even on this exact turn for a delicious feeling of plan-coming-togetherness). Build the SC. This increases your capitals culture output by 33%. Well done!


The Astronomy - Navigation - Archaeology Slingshot

Spoiler :
As the RA expire for the last slingshot, renew them immediately. Take note of when they will expire and get ready to perform the Archaeology shot. The purpose of this slingshot is to build the Louvre in your capital with your second GE and to provide early access to the powerful Hermitage National Wonder.

At the bottom of the Tech Tree beeline to Metal Casting. As soon as it's complete build a workshop and station an Engineer Specialist. Ensure that no other specialists are working. This specialist, along with Angkor Wat and the Garden, which you should build if you can, will generate another timely GE that you will use to build the Louvre.

After MC research Optics - Compass. Then sink a turn (or two just to be safe) of research into all the other available techs other than Astronomy. Don't forget Banking! If you've not made any mistakes and with a bit of luck, exactly 30 turns after your first slingshot you will receive, one turn after the other, Astronomy - Navigation - Archaeology. Use the GE to build the Louvre, and build two Landmarks with the Great Artists (GA). Lock these tiles to work for the rest of the game. Build the Hermitage immediately.


The Race for Cristo Redenter

Spoiler :
From here the race is on to build Cristo Redentor before the AI does. It isn't easy. If you fail to build it you will likely lose, you just won't be able to even finish 5 SP trees, let alone build the Utopia Project, before someone launches a spaceship. The specifics of how best to do it will be different every game. It all depends on how many Civs you've met and how many RAs you can fund. Your goal is to research Telegraph and lastly Radio. They are the last and only techs you now need. After you have these it wouldn't matter if you generated 0 science for the rest of the game.

The techs to sink some turns into to block the undesirable paths are Metallurgy, Fertilizer, Replaceable Parts, Railroad and Refrigeration. My advice is just to know how many RAs you have going and when they expire to best guide the path towards Telegraph. It's ok to enter into one or two more RAs than you need, because the likelihood of a RA selecting a tech which has a small amount of research invested into it is no longer zero.

There are 8 or 9 expensive techs that you need to get there. All of these, but one, will be researched via RAs. During this process pre-build Oxford University, which gives one free tech, to the point that it needs only one turn to finish. Complete the build as soon as Telegraph becomes available and use your third (and final) GE, who should be born by now, to build (most of) Cristo Redentor. This has reduced all future SPs buy 33%. Huge!

The final tech that you want is Radio. As soon as it's built build a Broadcast Tower, this doubles the base culture of your capital and along with CR reducing the SP cost is enough to provide you with a Deity Culture Victory. After CR is built just max out culture in anyway you can, you should be pumping out over 300 per turn and for maybe a dozen SPs in a row they will be coming at one every 5 or 6 turns. Even the last SP you get, the most expensive, will be under 10 turns.


Social Policies

Spoiler :
At the start of the game open Tradition then take Aristocracy, Legalism and Landed Elite. LE along with Angkor Wat and the huge amounts of raw culture you are producing will expand your borders like crazy. If you're lucky and you start in a spot that isn't quickly settled by your adversaries then your capital can become truly massive. This is cool, but unnecessary. I once won a Deity game with only 23 land hexes to my name.

After Landed Elite open Piety and take Mandate of Heaven.

As soon as Freedom is available open it. Once it is open take Constitution and Free Speech.

The 5 SP trees that I take are Tradition - Piety - Freedom - Patronage - Commerce/Order.


Diplomacy

Spoiler :
You have two main goals regarding diplomacy.

1. Don't get into any wars, unless the action is far, far away and everyone else is in on it too.

2. Incite wars against anyone who you think is nearing a Science Victory.

The second goal is pretty straight forward stuff. If you see Gandhi building lots of spaceship parts then do whatever you can to bribe whoever you like to go and start a fight.

It's the first goal, not getting into any wars, that can be tricky. You are a weakling. You have no army. Don't even bother wasting your time with walls and castles. Any one of the Civs out there, if they get up the motivation, can wipe you off the map and there isn't a thing you can do about it. Get used to this idea.

The main big decision is if to enter into a public declaration of friendship (DoF) with an early neighbor, or not. One of the main ways you can lose playing this way is if your neighbor just decides he wants your land. A DoF makes if very unlikely, as long as you're a good boy, that this Civ will declare war (DoW) on you. The bad side is that any Civ that becomes the enemy of your friend will dislike that you've Dof'd with them. I think sometimes it's a good idea and sometimes it's not. If there is one massive Civ on my continent and they want to be friends then I usually go for it. If it's heavily populated and there's some aggressive Civ's out there then I usually don't.

It's important to monitor the Civs attitude towards you, especially your neighbors so you can predict if they're preparing for war against you. If you can see that they are, you need to direct their attention elsewhere.

Happily, in my experience, once the first third of the game is over this becomes less of a problem. Every Civ will be your BFF and even though wars are going on all around you (some of them of your making), no one would even think about harming a hair on your head. I think it has something to do with not settling any additional cities and trading with everyone for all time. Normally disagreeable leaders, like Montezuma, will be bending over backwards for you. In one game Monty attacked one of my allied cultural city states three times. And three times I went and asked him what he wanted to declare peace with that city state and three times he just did it for nothing. What a guy!


Once those tasks are completed there's nothing left to do but build that pink spaceship the Utopia Project. By this time multiple other Civs will be breathing down your neck building spaceship parts left, right and center. If everything happens just right then the game can finish around the end of the 18th Century on standard speed and you possibly will not have been involved in a violent action of any kind. You have just won a Super Capital Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory!

I hope you enjoy a different style of Civ 5 game, even though it's only one city it definitely has a 'builder' feel to it. This is a style designed for Immortal/Deity. On lower levels there is no need to go through such elaborate methods in order to secure the key wonders. You can just build them as normal. On Deity they go fast, so you will be under pressure to reach your landmark points the entire game racing against the AI. This relieves a lot of the nexturnitits that typify culture wins in Civ 5. I'd be interested to hear any suggestions on improvements or feel free to point out any mistakes that I've made if you spot any.

Thanks for reading.

Snarzberry : )
 
Didnt work.

There is no diplomacy with Alexander and Genghis Khan. They will wipe you out everytime. Even when you bribe Genghis to start war with Alex.

I couldnt sell enough resources, becouse I havent any. Just marble and a crappy whale.
Babylon stayed hostile with me the whole game (until I get wiped by Alexie)

It was on King. On deity it i would be wiped in the first 100 turns...
Maybe its possible, but you are very dependent of starting resources, civs and some random AI variables.
 
It's not true that they'll wipe you out every time and you have a fair amount of ability to direct the anger elsewhere. But Alex and Genghis are two of the worst to have as neighbors early. Alex especially for early rushes. If I found myself between those two early, I must admit I wouldn't have high hopes for the game. But I wouldn't give up on it and would expect to win a fair amount of the time. Did you turn down a DoF with either of them early trying to avoid conflict with the other? Perhaps backing one in a war with the other might work in the specific situation. But who knows.... you are right that with this strategy there are some starts that are just seemingly un-winnable, but they are rare.

On Deity the AI expands like crazy and winning this way I usually have no more than two resources, hopefully two copies of one of them. If you have marble in your vicinity then I call that a lucky start.
 
Sometimes it is hard to take a winning strategy on a higher diff and make it work on a lower diff. Someone playing a king start has very poor neighbors, so they are probably not getting as much action with RA's, and have less leverage room to poke and prod CS's and other civs as necessary because they can not get the money they deserve out of their relatively few resources.
 
Excellent thread, thanks for posting!

Some interesting ideas there, I'll definitely be trying this out the next time I get around to playing :)

My last cultural attempt I lost on Immortal to an Arab diplomatic victory :mad:
 
Nice post...

I've been experimenting with pyramid for early GE point instead of stonehedge.
Spam trading post and buy CSs...results are pretty good.

The only thing you can add to the opening Stonehedge built is to settle on Marble if situation calls (in addition to chop tree/starving).


SeerTenedos said:
Sometimes it is hard to take a winning strategy on a higher diff and make it work on a lower diff. Someone playing a king start has very poor neighbors, so they are probably not getting as much action with RA's, and have less leverage room to poke and prod CS's and other civs as necessary because they can not get the money they deserve out of their relatively few resources.
Click to expand...

On king, AI don't spam cities as fast as higher level.
RA at higher level is just a mean to catch up on relative tech speed.
With the number of cities AI usually have on high level, they always tech faster.
 
Airey: The RA is a means to catch up on tech speed, but each time you do something like an RA with a neighbor you are using diplomacy which makes them like you a little more, and less likely to declare on you since they will not get the tech they paid for if they do. It is a form of diplomatic protection for someone with one city and no military to keep up as much trading of any kind as possible. This is less possible when your neighbors have not really got enough gold to keep things spinning. If you are getting bad money for your lux, and then can't even follow it up with a RA because there is not enough money to go round it is just that much less trade that can take place.
 
snarzberry said:
The very last SP that you accrue points for will be Free Religion. It gives you 2 free SPs. So take it as 3rd last and then the last 2 (the most expensive) are free.
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm missing something really obvious, but is it really necessary to wait for Free Religion? It doesn't increase the cost of future policies when it gives you the free ones, so no matter when you take it it still saves you the same amount of culture (you'll have to buy your last policy the old fashioned way, but it'll cost the same as Free Religion would have if you'd saved it for last). Why not take it as soon as you qualify and enjoy the benefits of more policies?
 
Maybe I got a very bad start. As I said, only Gandhi was a good boy, trying be friendly.

Alex and Genghis covet "my lands, my wonders, my children and my CSs". Babylon just stayed hostile saying my army is weak, I am weak, and someone would backstab me.

I couldnt BoF anyone. "I must decline".

I think you can be more specify what are the conditions to apply this strategy.
 
About the Free Religion, yes, you're right. I'm going to amend the guide to leave that out. I'll have an experiment to see when it's best to take the two policies. Someone else has made a suggestion that makes me want to try and do it into Rationalism.

Thanks for your comments!
 
Airey said:
Nice post...

I've been experimenting with pyramid for early GE point instead of stonehedge.
Spam trading post and buy CSs...results are pretty good.

The only thing you can add to the opening Stonehedge built is to settle on Marble if situation calls (in addition to chop tree/starving).
Click to expand...


How often have you been getting the pyramids? I sometimes notice when playing with this strat that after a while it's obvious that no one is building the pyramids and I pick them up for the extra GE points. But it's highly volatile. Same amount of techs needed though. SH is way better for this strat obv with the culture points and calendar leading into philo.

Yeah, about the marble I didn't think I needed to mention that, obv if you can settle on marble and get the wonder bonus you'd be crazy to not do it.
 
snarzberry said:
How often have you been getting the pyramids? I sometimes notice when playing with this strat that after a while it's obvious that no one is building the pyramids and I pick them up for the extra GE points. But it's highly volatile. Same amount of techs needed though. SH is way better for this strat obv with the culture points and calendar leading into philo.
Click to expand...

SH is risky if getting beat to it...I usually beeline NC, rush buy settler, pyramid next built...because AI, if wonder spamming will beeline SH/GL first. Leave the 2 open for them to grab delays pyramid's build time.

I was just comparing the early 8 culture vs latter from buying culture CS. Culture booming post medieval is good...SH would force to take the 3rd/4th policies early.

snarzberry said:
Yeah, about the marble I didn't think I needed to mention that, obv if you can settle on marble and get the wonder bonus you'd be crazy to not do it.
Click to expand...

LOL, you got a nice guide going, just thought you can include everything.
Marble is the only lux that is accessible without needing the Technology.
 
It's hard to say which civ is best to use for this. Arabia's extra gold makes paying for your RAs a lot easier and there's usually some left over to grab some early cultural city states. Egypt's wonder building can sometimes grab some additional wonders to the central ones, and they can end up making a big difference.
 
Sure, here's a game, not my best but I don't keep all games saved, where I'm Egypt with a nice location which is fairly isolated but still sharing a continent with three other civs.

The first is about half way through when I've just finished the Louvre (and have two GAs about to be planted) and the second is just before finishing the Utopia Project. That's what I call a big city! (Not population but border size)

Every game is so different and will throw up little challenges and require little changes. I knew that there would be some difficulties following my strat because it's not a straight cook book all the way to victory, it's just a general outline. Good play is still required and adjustments will need to be made on the fly. But this is the general goal, to build SH AW SC TL CR via popping three GE's and it can be done quickly enough on deity if you use the slingshots I've described.

Where are you running into trouble?
 
Thanks for the guide. I tried it out an managed to finish cultural victory on deity at turn 231. I played faar from optimaly thought so it is probably possible to cut it down quite a few turns.

I did this without citystates aswell. I played a quite "easy" map. Four corners. quick speed Tiny map, all other normal settings.

Anyone managed to do this on quick speed and in less than 200 turns. I think it might actually be possible since I screwed up on quite a lot of things and still managed at turn 231.
 
snarzberry said:
Where are you running into trouble?
Click to expand...
´

As I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to these strategy guides, so here are some points where I have been not entirely sure of what to do.

1) What about exploring? Should I send my warrior/scout to find other civs, what to do then if I am spammed with roaring barbarians? My conclusion to this was that I should send my warrior/scout away to find other civs and shot down any barbs with my capital.

2) What to do when I have built my wonder and don't really know what I should do with my production capacity? I think that I should build things that give culture and GEpoints and cost nothing to have.

3) RA, this is something I have not been using. When you define what should be researched, you also mean that I need to close trees that I don't want researched.

4) Population, you say in the beginning to try keep the capital at 3 but then I guess that you really want it to grow, when should I loose the reins on the growth.

I thank you for the save file and hope that might give answers to my questions.

Kind regards,

J
 
Hmm... save files only helped me with one thing... it gave me a couple of undeserved steam thingies.

Could not look at the save files the way you used to be able to look at them, I guess I have to just go through my game and see where it leads me.

/J
 
begosh said:
´

As I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to these strategy guides, so here are some points where I have been not entirely sure of what to do.

1) What about exploring? Should I send my warrior/scout to find other civs, what to do then if I am spammed with roaring barbarians? My conclusion to this was that I should send my warrior/scout away to find other civs and shot down any barbs with my capital.

Yes you should explore with your initial warrior as normal. You're looking to find 3 or 4 other Civs. 3 friends is the magic number where you'll be able to make the two slingshots work, but 4 is better than 3 because it'll be faster. Once I've discovered 4 other Civs I usually send my warrior to defend my worker. Remember the first two builds are monument then worker. Don't waste critical early hammers on a scout, your warrior can do the job fine.

2) What to do when I have built my wonder and don't really know what I should do with my production capacity? I think that I should build things that give culture and GEpoints and cost nothing to have.

You're capital is your only city and as such will contain a lot of buildings. The wonders and other buildings that I described are the essential things that should be done ASAP when they become available. But, of course, you'll still want to build a granary, market, national epic national treasury, temple, university, ironworks etc during the game.

The best order to construct these other buildings will vary. For instance if you can see that your 2nd GE is not on track to be popped by the time the Louvre is available then the national epic/garden become priorities. If the 2nd GE doesn't need speeding up and you're running low on cash then the market/national treasury get built first. It changes every game depending on your capitals overall yields.

You need to build the opera house and the museum to be able to build the hermitage, which doubles your base culture. You need to build the university to be able to construct oxford university which gives you one free tech during the race to cristo redentor. Don't build any other science buildings, your science comes mainly from RA's.


3) RA, this is something I have not been using. When you define what should be researched, you also mean that I need to close trees that I don't want researched.

Yes you need to block off the paths that you don't want the RA to take you down. After getting Civil Service with your first RA (you know how to do that one right? if not just ask) your next three RA's are designed to get Chivalry Education and Acoustics. Sign those RA's around turn 75 - 80. Then tech to Currency. That tech path makes Education and Chivalry available, and if you have Education and Chivalry that makes Acoustics available. Sink a turn into any tech that is available that isn't Edu or Chiv. Renew the RA's as they come in and then repeat for Astrology Navigation Archaeology.

4) Population, you say in the beginning to try keep the capital at 3 but then I guess that you really want it to grow, when should I loose the reins on the growth.

What I said about limiting your pop to 3 at the start of the game is solely about getting SH. Once SH is built allow your capital to grow. As far as tile improvements go if you farm every riverside tile and trade-post every plains tile, mine every hill (unless you have lots of prod then it's better to farm riverside hills) and lumber mill every forest then you'll be pretty close to how I set my capital up.

I thank you for the save file and hope that might give answers to my questions.

Kind regards,

J
Click to expand...


Good Luck, let me know how you go.
 
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