A couple of Deity related post patch questions

Greasy Dave

Prince
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Oct 30, 2010
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Hookay. I moved up to Deity in the last couple of months of Vanilla and after a couple of wins thought I was starting to understand it.

After Gand K came out I played and won a Deity game as Korea but then decided it was too much freaking stress compared to the vanilla Deity games I'd played and dropped back down to immortal.

I've had a break and have started getting back into playing recently. I noticed on my first game post patch, and from comments here, how much less money the AI has generally, most especially at the start. We all know how important trades are at the start for DEity games so it got me wondering what kind of knock on effect has that had on playing at DEity and the AI's own performance and abilities?

(Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the change - I think I prefer it - this is just curiosity of someone who's possibly going to satrt a DEity game again soon)

In my post patch game, I was playing as Theodora (standard, pangea). I was going for the 4 city tradition opening. I was playing Immortal and wasn't rushing too hard on the Education and NC beeline (I didn't digress too far, just built Petra before the NC). Anyhow, lack of cash certainly slowed down my ability to rush buy settlers and libraries. Because of this I didn't get the NC up until turn 80 I think. I didn't get to education until turn 147. If I'd been playing Deity then I'd probably have altered my build order and stalled city building until I'd got the NC. But that would have had a knock on effect on civ growth etc etc. BASically it seemed to me that the whole opening 100 turns were considerably slower given the shortage of gold.

how does that work out in Deity? Pre- patch and certainly in vanilla I was aiming for Education at turn 120 latest.

And how about the second half of the game? In this immortal game I had DOF's with four civs nearly all the time, but the chances of all four of them having enough money for RA's was zero. (The chances of myself having enough cash for RA's was also low - despite having tithe, many, many, many followers and economy buildings). I had on average 3 RA's going at a time. FOur occasionally. But they were spread out and almost impossible to achieve back to back as it were. I had to subsidise every RA with my own money gifted to the AI.

In the second half of the game I did actually start to tighten up my play and try and beeline to rocketry and sci victory. I got it at turn 293.

Pre-patch, Deity games used to be over and done by turn 260-270. If I'd popped education back at turn 120, then that would translate to a 266 turn finish - which MIGHT have been early enough.

My question is, has the lack of cash effected the AI as well and slowed it down too ( I don't think I saw a single notice saying two AI civs had made any RA's- they just didn't have the cash)? Or are we still talking about AI victories by turn 260 or earlier?

I'm just wondering what I should be aiming for? Thanks in advance.
 
I played few Deity games since patch. Lost few and won few.

Most important change i noticed is that AI is using specialists, which as you can guess, mean they will advance faster. Lack of gold isn't really that bad on Deity. By turn 100 they usually have enough cash to buy your luxes constantly and will have cash for RA.

Problem is, they seem a lot more agressive, even on archipelago. maybe that is due to the fact they spend a lot fo cash on troops, i do not know. But every single game i had was ugly with everyone DoW'ing denouncing and backstabbing everyone else, not dependent if i (personally) play nice or not.

RAs are a whole lot weaker, have to develop more home grown science post patch. Still, every little bit counts.

Also, widespread usage of specialists & zombie armies dictate human player to go wider than before (imo) to keep and overshoot them in tech eventually. I could win with 3-5 cities before patch. Now i tend to go for 6-8, if i want to win a space race, for example.

In last couple of games i had i found it quite effective to start with 4 cities and conquer 3-4 puppets around turn 120 (without switching off overall science focus). Maybe someone can suggest another road to Deity victory. Would be interesting to know.
 
In last couple of games i had i found it quite effective to start with 4 cities and conquer 3-4 puppets around turn 120 (without switching off overall science focus). Maybe someone can suggest another road to Deity victory. Would be interesting to know.

That is my path as well, except that I don't plan on stopping the puppetting beyond that. I just have to successfully get to turn 80 first.
 
RAs are a whole lot weaker, have to develop more home grown science post patch.

Are you saying that they've been nerfed? I wasn't aware that they'd fiddled with the RA beaker equation?


Anyway, thanks for the reply.
I'm going to cowboy up some time soon and jump in to the deep end - but I want to enjoy another couple of immortal games and fiddle with religion tactics. I'm curious to try a goddess of the hunt/ temple of artemis growth strat and see where that takes me.
 
RAs were bugged pre-patch (doublecounting research overflows), potentially yielding ridiculous numbers of beakers.
 
I will prioritize libraries and National College over my fourth city and granaries.

You have to check every turn to sell your lux, it's tiresome but as soon as they have more than 150 gold, I sell.

There is also a bit of a bargain involved, as I build less archers than I used to.

I plan on catching up by renaissance: if I'm the first to build the porcelain tower, I'm ok. If not, I quit.
 
Eh I don't think I really saw them win that early pre-patch either, but I think my games have had so many wars going on that they just get ADD and forget to try to win.

They certainly are more aggressive now. I'm currently playing a game with Ethiopia. I settled a third city. Arabia went Honor and went after it on turn 55 and Sweden went at it on turn 60. Thankfully I settled on a hill on a river, held on to enough cash to buy Walls, and had 3 Archers, so they both got pretty brutally murdered. It also gave me a great opportunity to snatch the city Sweden stupidly put on flat land right next to me. Still, I've had some UGLY games post-patch, especially the Iroquois and Japan. Mohawks and Bushido respectively are absolutely brutal with the AI's enhanced spam.

I have noticed that if I'm not playing science I often don't even bother with a fourth city anymore. The AI eats land INSANELY fast now with their settler buying and defending the extra city is often more of a burden than it's often not worth it.
 
Why do you aim on 4 cities for science? I find 3 is usually enough?
Agree on the land grabbing.
 
I finally saw what people were talking about regarding land grabbing. If I set up my second city anywhere outside of my initial cities borders, I get wiped out as if settling my first city imposed on their sovereignty. However...I have only seen this on Deity, I have never seen in it any of my Immortal games (pre or post patch).
 
Seems like I can found 3 cities pretty freely on Diety post-patch (as long as I'm not stupid about settling in the face of an AI), but the AI civs go bat-sh*t when I found my fourth city anytime before about turn 100-120 (negative "expanding too fast" modifiers from nearly everyone, an insta-DOW from at least one civ, and sometimes multiple DOWs). Diety civs have always been touchy about rapid expansion, but this seems worse that pre-patch G&K. I'm thinking it's just better/safer to let an AI claim my desired 4th city spot (which is often just an OK site anyway) and eventually take the city from them. I have a hard time seeing how a wide/ICS-ish approach can ever work on Diety (although some will probably respond by saying "It's easy. All you have to do is ....").
 
Why do you aim on 4 cities for science? I find 3 is usually enough?
Agree on the land grabbing.

Meh, I've shifted more and more to 3 cities now anyway so take what I say with a grain of salt. :p

I do wonder how peaceful play has been affected on Deity. Domination games are manageable but I haven't tried a cultural game post-patch(or a long time before that lol). :crazyeye: I believe MadDjinn or someone was going to do one? I'm curious how much murdering is involved.

And I don't know if it's just me but the AI seems to have developed a huge obsession with Flight post-patch, even moreso than before. I've noticed if I don't get my Triplanes rolling by a certain point then I am just going to get SWARMED by Great War Bombers.
 
Seems like I can found 3 cities pretty freely on Diety post-patch (as long as I'm not stupid about settling in the face of an AI), but the AI civs go bat-sh*t when I found my fourth city anytime before about turn 100-120 (negative "expanding too fast" modifiers from nearly everyone, an insta-DOW from at least one civ, and sometimes multiple DOWs). Diety civs have always been touchy about rapid expansion, but this seems worse that pre-patch G&K. I'm thinking it's just better/safer to let an AI claim my desired 4th city spot (which is often just an OK site anyway) and eventually take the city from them. I have a hard time seeing how a wide/ICS-ish approach can ever work on Diety (although some will probably respond by saying "It's easy. All you have to do is ....").

It's easy, all you have to do is....watch MadDjinn's Mayan video (ICS on Pangaea). :)

but I don't remember if it was pre or post patch
 
Wow, that was a hilarious first trip back in the hot seat. I was playing Theodora and spawned within ten tiles of Attilla. He had a second city right up against my back side by turn ten.

Turn 45 his horde and rams showed up on my doorstep, six horse archers, two battering rams and a hoste of warriors:crazyeye: Game over. No credits remaing.

I should have prepared earlier for him, but still, even if I'd been pumping out archers from the get go, I don't think I could have held that lot back :lol:

The funny thing is that he had offered me a lifeline ten turns earlier. He'd wanted me to declare war on Caesar with him....I was wrong to fear the might of the legion over that raggedy horse thief. :eek:

Hmm, I can see what people are saying - WAY, WAY more agression even for peace lovers like myself - not sure I like that :(.
 
It's easy, all you have to do is....watch MadDjinn's Mayan video (ICS on Pangaea). :)

but I don't remember if it was pre or post patch

Pre-patch and he escaped from near death several times (in fact, acknowledged that he should have lost several times, including on the final turn when a stray civilian kept the AI from a science victory). Post-patch? Hmmm.

Anyway, MadDjinn I ain't... Not by a country mile, or a few thousand country miles....
 
I should have prepared earlier for him, but still, even if I'd been pumping out archers from the get go, I don't think I could have held that lot back :lol:

I did confront Attila few times, he is actually pretty weak in most circumstances, since Rams cant attack units. In that situation you are describing (spawning really close to someone on Deity) the only course of action i take is - quickly settle city number 2 and start producing archers like mad. By turn 55 i usually have 7+ CB, which is enough to repel most attacks. Add few more CBs along they way, while building NC in reasonable timeframe (turns 70-80) and you're looking at 3-4 puppets by turn 100.
 
I did confront Attila few times, he is actually pretty weak in most circumstances, since Rams cant attack units. In that situation you are describing (spawning really close to someone on Deity) the only course of action i take is - quickly settle city number 2 and start producing archers like mad. By turn 55 i usually have 7+ CB, which is enough to repel most attacks. Add few more CBs along they way, while building NC in reasonable timeframe (turns 70-80) and you're looking at 3-4 puppets by turn 100.

I don't know how you can do all that under 80 turns. Produce a settler, 7 archers, get enough gold to upgrade them, going for construction, build two libraries, going to philosophy and building NC? Probably need a worker or two as well.
Impressive.
 
I don't know how you can do all that under 80 turns. Produce a settler, 7 archers, get enough gold to upgrade them, going for construction, build two libraries, going to philosophy and building NC? Probably need a worker or two as well.
Impressive.

i made this video to show how it can be done. Bit of unlucky game, but shows my general path nonetheless.
 
I finally saw what people were talking about regarding land grabbing. If I set up my second city anywhere outside of my initial cities borders, I get wiped out as if settling my first city imposed on their sovereignty. However...I have only seen this on Deity, I have never seen in it any of my Immortal games (pre or post patch).

Oh they do this in Immortal too.

If you have nearby neighbors, they will settle right on top of you, or if you get to those spots first, well, you'll lose the city, fast. :cry:

I've realized it's absolutely imperative to settle on hills, preferable on hills behind rivers just to even have a chance now.
 
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