Deity Tall Midgame Strategy with Agressive Neighbour

I just started playing Deity and need some help for a tall mid/endgame strategy playing Babylon aiming for a Science Victory. I have certainly read Sadato's great OCC Science Deity guide. However it does not address mid/late game strategies for when you have an agressive neighbour. In other words: what to do when you are making good progress but it's suddenly just you and the runaway civ (on lower levels I just kick their butt relentlessly with advanced and highly promoted units).

My situation:

• playing Babylon (standard Pangea with 8 Civs 16 CS) and got excellent starting location perfect for Petra
• AI Civs: Greece, Siam, Austria, Sweden, Huns, Songhai, Aztecs
• I settled a total of three cities, all on hills, next to a river and mountain and as soon as possible they all have Observatories and Public Schools working Science specialists
• Noone bothered me except for an early war with Songhai (who wasn't exaclty a close neighbour and I kicked his butt with bowmen signing peace before settling my 2nd and 3rd city); in fact, my only neighbour was Montezuma and his capital was like 15+ tiles to the west beyond hilly terrain and mountain ranges
• Had one source of Ivory and a global monopoly of Copper with 5 sources which I managed to trade at full price initially; also had all strategic resources including 7 Oil
• Managed to get all the key wonders: Petra, Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Porcelain Tower, Brandenburg Gate
• Completed the NC on turn 48, signed 4 RAs with Education (turn 90), 2 RAs on turn 120 [but not a single RA after I built the Porcelain Tower as Montezuma wiped out most of my initial friends making it kind of pointless apart from the free GS]
• My third (meatgrinder) city was built between the capital and Montezuma's territory in a chokepoint with adjacent mountain ranges NW and SE and citadels NE and SW just one tile from the city; artillery with Logistics promotion in the city, all defensive building, and Infantry with double ranged defense promotions fortified in those citadels
• Science: I went for Dynamite (-> Artillery) and Biology (-> more Food and Oil) after Scientific Theory and managed to steal Flight while I was teching for Plastics

I had the tech lead and things were going extremely well for my first deity science victory ... so I thought. But then, it was game over a few turns later.

What happened:

• As soon as I had the gold for it I bought my first Triplane in the capital (since I had Brandenburg and Barracks line there for the Air Repair promotion) and stationed it in the meatgrinder city
• Next turn Air Recon revealed that Montezuma had 12 artillery north of the city + some cavalry, lancers, and great war infantry and 10 artillery south of the city not to mention 22 air units (mix of great war bombers and triplanes) stationed in the city just 5 tiles from mine behind a mountain range.
• Next turn he declares war, takes out my infantry stationed in the citadel one tile NE of the city, bombs my city to 0 and takes it with a Lancer. Yes, Montezuma took my impenetrable fortress the very same turn he declared war!
• a few turns later he took my capital and won by domination even before I finished the Research Lab in my 2nd and 3rd city

I would like to ask what was wrong in my approach or what I could have don differently. The alternative approaches I have considered are:

1. Standard: ignore Dynamite and Biology, and tech straight for Plastics after Scientific Theory via Replaceable parts and then build a significant army of Great War Infantry (upgrade to Infantry with Plastics) to take out all that artillery (is it even possible?)
2. Defensive: ignore Dynamite and go straight to Biology after Sceintific Theory and then Flight before teching for Plastics so I can have a stack of Triplanes in my meat grinder city and a few Great War Bombers before Montezuma's overwhelming attack
3. Offensive: go for Dynamite and ignore Biology, then go for Plastics via Replaceable Parts; then build a ton of artillery and start taking Montezuma's cities that are less than 6 tiles from my cities then keep a permanent war so you can kill all settlers in Bomber range. Note that taking him out early was not an option ... terrain was difficult (which worked to my advantage in the beginning) and even with my tech advantage (early Machinery) since it would have taken 20+ turns for me to get to his capital a crossbow rush would not help because he would have crossbows already by the time I get there and I would then have to focus on constantly supplying new units to keep up the pressure and would then fall behind significantly on my infrastructure, tech and my chances to win a SV before any of the other Civs do.
4. Other: ?

Any help and suggestions or ideas on this are very much appreciated!

My third (meatgrinder) city was built between the capital and Montezuma's territory in a chokepoint with adjacent mountain ranges NW and SE and citadels NE and SW just one tile from the city; artillery with Logistics promotion in the city, all defensive building, and Infantry with double ranged defense promotions fortified in those citadels.

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There's your problem. Put a city like this between you and him on diety and its like sayin "I dare you to attack me".

Merenptah said:

[*]Managed to get all the key wonders: Petra, Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Porcelain Tower, Brandenburg Gate

[*] Other: ?
[/LIST]

Any help and suggestions or ideas on this are very much appreciated!

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If you got those wonders, you should be ahead on tech and it seems like you did. Based on your description, it seems that it's difficult to attack from your side to Monty side and vise versa.

Unless you attack someone before or on dynamite timing and become powerful, it's almost certain that there will be a runaway civ and he will beat you even in sci eventually.

In your case, if you plan to play diffensively at that chokepoint, make sure you have enough units and anti-air units. Just block the way with your units so that he cannot last hit you when things go bad.

usually AIs use planes/bombers not effectively - if you fortify couple of infantry and anti air, their planes will be gone soon. Of course you need to make couple more units to replace if needed when he DoWs you.

First of all, congrats! I've never seen AI wins by domination. What turn was it?

I think that's the problem with turtling on deity. You live as long as AI lets you to. Having Greece, the Huns, the Aztecs and Songhai in the game and playing bunker is not a good idea, IMO. Sooner or later they'll run out of space and will be ready to add your epic cities to their barbarian empires. Perhaps, more aggressive approach would have given you an edge on AI. It does sound to me like you didn't have enough units. Two infantry and artillery - it's not exactly a force that can stop deity hordes. On top of that, pay your neighbors to DoW each other as often as you only can. This is extremely helpful. Each turn they're occupied with each other, they're probably not occupied with you.

Try going for Dynamite before Scientific Theory. I do it in my domination games, by investing 1 GS + Oxford. In return, you get 5+ cities really fast, most of them with science buildings. And a nice settlement.

It also sounds like Monty was a runaway, which is another reason I don't like playing peaceful. With THAT big of an army, your best would have been to cut him off long, long before he got to that point, like back in the early Industrial. I know you said that wasn't an option, but unless he built the Great Wall or something, it was definitely an option. Trying to shift from peace to offense on relatively short notice to deal with a HUUUUUGE attack force like that is asking a hell of a lot. Yes, it would delay you a bit at first, but it would be well worth it down the road. Are you ONLY trying to win by Science or is Domination an option?

Also would you happen to have a starting and/or save near where the apocalypse occurred?

The Pilgrim said:

First of all, congrats! I've never seen AI wins by domination. What turn was it?

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It was on turn 241, and I have never seen it either but I havn't played Deity much. In fact I was expecting/hoping that he would stop expanding since I had been such a good friend giving discounted Lux and sharing every intrigue possible not to mention my difficult to access location, and that he would try for a science victory (just like Hiawatha does when he's huge), and then I would beat him to it.

The Pilgrim said:

On top of that, pay your neighbors to DoW each other as often as you only can. This is extremely helpful. Each turn they're occupied with each other, they're probably not occupied with you.

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From that point of view it worked like a charm, I had to bribe noone, it just happened naturally and could not have been better from that point of view. All AI civs seemed to hate each other from the very beginning and no Civ was ever at peace for the the entire game. Attila was at war with Alex in the far west. Then Siam (Center North) declared war on Alex once he got too many CS friends (Greece was way ahead Austria, Siam and Sweden in terms of CS allies; I had none and didn't even try just avoid making enemies). Austria was at war with Songhai in the NE, and Montezuma was at war with Sweden center south, while I was peacefully turtling my way to a science victory in the SE corner protected by mountain ranges. Alex was fighting two fronts (Attila on the West and Siam on the NE), but still had clear upper hand in both wars (surprising also since I thought the AI generally fails if it faces two opponents in two different locations at the same time, but Alex was really strong). By the time Attila and Siam had just one or two cities left, Montezuma attacked Greece from the SE after having wiped Sweden. And Montezuma basically just swallowed up Greece's pretty huge empire in no time and then just spread like a virus (I guess Alex did not expect/anticipated his attack and had zero unites stationed SE on the border with Sweden); the Huns and Siam followed swiftly. All the while Austria and Songhai were having a stale mate war in the NE (just producing units and wearing each other down I guess). On turn 200 I was still tech leader and the only one who caught up with me eventually tech wise was Montezuma with the others far behind. I found Montezuma to be a great opportunist; after wiping Siam he just attacked Austria and Songhai followed shortly after.

Now here is what was really interesting: Montezuma had an incredible and ever increasing CPT. In fact I was worried that he might beat me with a Cultural Victory. Yes, seriously, he had 4 finished Social Policy trees already (Liberty, Honor, Piety and Autocracy), and was going to start a 5th (but I didn't get to see that). How is it even possible? He had nearly 100 cities and completes 4 SP trees by turn 240?? To be fair most of them were puppets but still ...

Autocracy opener giving culture for taking cities and his UA giving culture for killing units. If he was trashing a lot of both, he was hauling it in big.

Light Cleric said:

Autocracy opener giving culture for taking cities and his UA giving culture for killing units. If he was trashing a lot of both, he was hauling it in big.

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Yes indeed, and I forgot to mention that he founded a religion (Hinduism) with World Church and Religious Texts and was spreading that agressively also. He even sent his missionaries my way but I didn't mind buying Monasteries in all of my cities and getting +2 Happiness from Temples. But I guess the contribution from religion was puny compared to the rest.

Light Cleric said:

It also sounds like Monty was a runaway, which is another reason I don't like playing peaceful. With THAT big of an army, your best would have been to cut him off long, long before he got to that point, like back in the early Industrial. I know you said that wasn't an option, but unless he built the Great Wall or something, it was definitely an option.

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He did have the Great Wall pretty quickly as well as the Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Terracotta Army and later got Forbidden Palace, Big Ben and Eiffel Tower and acquired the rest via conquest. His capital was coastal but on a very small inland sea that you could not access from the outside.

Light Cleric said:

Also would you happen to have a starting and/or save near where the apocalypse occurred?

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Sadly not and I wish I had some screen shots at least to make it more clear. It actually happened on the weekend and I wasn't thinking about posting about it. But it bothered me that I couldn't win with such an amazing start (three cities on a river, mountains, flood plains, hills, Lux and noone to bother me) and decided to post about it.

Light Cleric said:

Are you ONLY trying to win by Science or is Domination an option?

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I think you can allways win by domination if you set your mind to it and are focused each turn. I am new to deity SV is what I meant but have won several Deity domination games pre patch (but I think it got easier post-patch now that you can heal yoru units via pillage) and I have also have won all of the scenarios on deity (Mongols, Korea vs. Japan, and the quite difficult "Joke is on the Mongols" religion scenario playing Russia). I've also seen and enjoyed your great Let's Play videos and I want to thank you for those.

So, this could definitely have been won by domination attacking Montezuma with Spies, Artillery and Cavalry. Crossbows really not an option: too far ... lots of hills and mountains on the way ... Great Wall and he had Frigates in his little puddle by the capital and where he stationed a submarine later . After Montezume just go for Greece and just do what he did, i.e. build a huge puppet empire. But I like to set some targets before I start playing the game, and I select the Civ and starting location accordingly not to mention early wonders. For a domination game I would probably choose China/Japan/America and build the Great Wall just for denial purposes.

The Pilgrim said:

First of all, congrats! I've never seen AI wins by domination. What turn was it?

I think that's the problem with turtling on deity. You live as long as AI lets you to. Having Greece, the Huns, the Aztecs and Songhai in the game and playing bunker is not a good idea, IMO. Sooner or later they'll run out of space and will be ready to add your epic cities to their barbarian empires. Perhaps, more aggressive approach would have given you an edge on AI. It does sound to me like you didn't have enough units. Two infantry and artillery - it's not exactly a force that can stop deity hordes. On top of that, pay your neighbors to DoW each other as often as you only can. This is extremely helpful. Each turn they're occupied with each other, they're probably not occupied with you.

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This is a very astute observation. If you want a peaceful game, don't fill the map with a bunch of war mongers.

I would suggest that you not play so peaceful next time. When Songhai DOW early, you should have had some early puppets. I like it when the AI DOW me, because then I can take their cities without being labeled a war monger. I generally only take their capital and 1-2 other good cities before getting peace. This cripples them, boosts my empire, and does not give the high negative diplo hit I would get if I DOW or if I wipe them out completely.

Also, keep tabs on the AI and try to prop up the underdogs against the runaway. If the AI are fighting each other, then they cannot attack you as effectively. In your game, you could have made friends with the AI further away, and then attacked Monty early on when he marched his troops in their direction. Again, making a puppet out of his capital and 1-2 other key cities will generally cripple him for the rest of the game.

Merenptah said:

It was on turn 241, and I have never seen it either but I havn't played Deity much. In fact I was expecting/hoping that he would stop expanding since I had been such a good friend giving discounted Lux and sharing every intrigue possible not to mention my difficult to access location, and that he would try for a science victory (just like Hiawatha does when he's huge), and then I would beat him to it.

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Well, now you know better. Never hope/expect/dream AI will stop expanding and let you do your thing. Not Monty, not Alex, not most of the rest. It does happen sometimes, because AI is too stupid to effectively prevent you from winning, but it's not given, more like a lottery ticket. Bottom line, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Worst will happen much more often on deity.

From that point of view it worked like a charm, I had to bribe noone, it just happened naturally and could not have been better from that point of view. All AI civs seemed to hate each other from the very beginning and no Civ was ever at peace for the the entire game. Attila was at war with Alex in the far west. Then Siam (Center North) declared war on Alex once he got too many CS friends (Greece was way ahead Austria, Siam and Sweden in terms of CS allies; I had none and didn't even try just avoid making enemies). Austria was at war with Songhai in the NE, and Montezuma was at war with Sweden center south, while I was peacefully turtling my way to a science victory in the SE corner protected by mountain ranges. Alex was fighting two fronts (Attila on the West and Siam on the NE), but still had clear upper hand in both wars (surprising also since I thought the AI generally fails if it faces two opponents in two different locations at the same time, but Alex was really strong). By the time Attila and Siam had just one or two cities left, Montezuma attacked Greece from the SE after having wiped Sweden. And Montezuma basically just swallowed up Greece's pretty huge empire in no time and then just spread like a virus (I guess Alex did not expect/anticipated his attack and had zero unites stationed SE on the border with Sweden); the Huns and Siam followed swiftly. All the while Austria and Songhai were having a stale mate war in the NE (just producing units and wearing each other down I guess). On turn 200 I was still tech leader and the only one who caught up with me eventually tech wise was Montezuma with the others far behind. I found Montezuma to be a great opportunist; after wiping Siam he just attacked Austria and Songhai followed shortly after.

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Sweden vs Aztecs is not even close. Sweden never seems to last long in my games. Don't know what's their story. I think you missed the point Montezuma started to run away and just let him do His thing. If he was swallowing up his neighbors, that's not kind of war you want him to be involved in. It didn't trim him but gave him even more cities. If there was no AI force that was big and strong enough to deal with him before he grew into a beast, you had to apply the blow yourself. Was it possible? I have no idea. I do believe, some games are simply not winnable without replaying, reloading and cheating your way to victory. Maybe you had really bad luck with it. However, although it didn't end very well for you, overall it sounds like and awesome game. 241 dom victory is beyond impressive.

Merenptah said:

He did have the Great Wall pretty quickly as well as the Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Terracotta Army and later got Forbidden Palace, Big Ben and Eiffel Tower and acquired the rest via conquest. His capital was coastal but on a very small inland sea that you could not access from the outside.

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Oh, so he doing that thing where he has a ton of Frigates to defend himself as well as having a Frigates + ranged unit inside the city. That's SO annoying. That + the Great Wall certainly does change things. Citadels and buffed siege units make the Great Wall much more managable than in Vanilla, but that sounds downright disgusting

I think you can allways win by domination if you set your mind to it and are focused each turn. I am new to deity SV is what I meant but have won several Deity domination games pre patch (but I think it got easier post-patch now that you can heal yoru units via pillage) and I have also have won all of the scenarios on deity (Mongols, Korea vs. Japan, and the quite difficult "Joke is on the Mongols" religion scenario playing Russia).

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Yeah, I wasn't sure if you were trying specifically for Science was my question. I think Domination got harder with the patch like all the other victories. Playing peaceful got harder, but playing peaceful on a difficulty where the AI behaves like a 2 year old given nuclear launch codes is always going to be difficult The pillaging thing is great, but it doesn't nearly make up for the increased volume of units that come your way from the AI, especially Planes, or the fact that you still have to survive those early turns no matter what you victory you're planning. There's also times where you get a massively powerful runaway on the other side of the planet and you have to make a hard, fast push across the world to take them out before they become too strong.

I've also seen and enjoyed your great Let's Play videos and I want to thank you for those.

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Thank you I'm glad people are enjoying them.

So, this could definitely have been won by domination attacking Montezuma with Spies, Artillery and Cavalry. Crossbows really not an option: too far ... lots of hills and mountains on the way ... Great Wall and he had Frigates in his little puddle by the capital and where he stationed a submarine later . After Montezume just go for Greece and just do what he did, i.e. build a huge puppet empire. But I like to set some targets before I start playing the game, and I select the Civ and starting location accordingly not to mention early wonders. For a domination game I would probably choose China/Japan/America and build the Great Wall just for denial purposes.

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Sadly I can't give much advice that adds to what you have in the OP + what others have said without seeing the map other than:

-Try to take some of his satellite cities
-Beat up a different AI; if no AI is nearby, drop a city near them to Citadel off of
-If a runaway is emerging, like Pilgrim said, don't get other AIs involved with war unless you are attacking the runaway soon and want a distraction. It will just feed the runaway more cities.

Also I don't know that building the Great Wall for denial purposes would really work; beating the AI to a 250 hammer wonder they love which prereqs Engineering is a hell of a feat to pull off.

Could you post the opening save, so that we could see if we could do any better out of your start than you did? All the advice here is good in itself, but if, for example, you'd built a big enough army to cripple Monty earlier, you wouldn't have done a lot of the stuff that got you as far as you did in terms of the tech lead you had when things went south. Like Pilgrim, I believe some deity games just aren't winnable, that you need things to break your way not only early (good starting location, useful ruins) but mid-game as well (war that cripples, not enhances, a runaway).

The main advise is however you play, you cannot let a single runaway civ on Deity. By the time he had already taken 2 other capitals and already looked quite "runaway" you needed to act.

In particular, since it was Monty, you *could've* tried to chain DoFs on the very turn they wore off. He is usually quite easy to befriend. I think the military gap was still high enough that he would've backstabbed and attacked though.

But yeah as others mentionned, be proactive whenever you see a potential runaway. You could've paid monty to spam a bunch of DoWs(even CSs if you are desperate) such that the entire universe is against him...and then you position your units on a flank and just take a few cities as his units are busy elsewhere.

Once flight is out (or hell depending on positioning, even artillery alone can do it) but anyway, it's easy to do 100-0 on a city and take it the same turn so you usually need to pack 4-5 melee units "in front" of your city. Settled GGs on the outer border if you know war is coming is also beastly. I've had cities stay at 0 health for dozens of turns just because my enemy couldn't move a melee unit straight through and I would just use my range/air to kill melee over melee


Anyway, my 2cents