Deity Guides W/O VP??

[farmerwajj]

Long time lurker, first time poster. I've got ~2,500 hours on the game.

I'm a huge achievement collector, and I've gotten most of the really difficult ones (Khan scenario, Ottoman carpentry, etc) without cheesing, so I always play the game without mods to grab the achievements. This means I don't use VP, or any other mod. Now this may be me talking out my butt, but if I understand correctly from my "research" that VP rebalances the game in a way that makes it awfully different and makes many deity guides worthless. An example I've run across many times is grabbing a pantheon that doesn't exist in the normal game, or using (abusing?) various military units that don't exist in the normal game.

I'm not saying that's bad or that it makes the game too easy or anything like that, but I do not want to use any mod when I'm playing. I am trying to take that final step to beating deity without mods on any start, rather than just rerolling until I get a really good one. Are there any youtubers or well made guides out there where VP mod is not used, where it's just the unmodded game? The vast majority of streamers and other guides are with that mod in use.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[so_what]

There are a couple of threads in the strategy sub-forum which should be pretty useful.

 

[Nizef]

It seems to me that you are already a very experienced and skilled player. What kind of guidelines are you looking for?

I am not the best person to point out what is already available on the forum, but I will give you one hint. In the Strategy&Tips section we have a quite active thread, Enjoyable Deity Games. We are playing the same games and comparing findings in reports. I am sure that write ups by players like vadalaz, Shark Diver, Tiberiu and Turtle could add depth to your understanding of the game.

 

[farmerwajj]

Thanks for the reply. Mainly, I'd like a good guide to culture victory, since that's by far the hardest for me. I'd also like some insight on how to maintain a healthy economy/happiness when fighting a two or three pronged war, especially with the mediocre/bad civs.

I'll be sure to check out the enjoyable deity games thread!

 

[Nizef]

The best reports are probably from page 20 onwards.

I will try to outline how I go about a CV on Deity. Hopefully that will help you, even a little bit. There are definitely better players than me, but I have the highest number of Deity wins in the Hall of Fame, so I would say that I have a fair share of experience. Below, I will try to describe a "robust" way of getting a CV.

Unlike all other victory conditions, you need a reasonable start for a CV. Otherwise it roughly follows your normal science path for a SV (Libraries, Universities, Public Schools and Research Labs) but the start is more important. We will come back to this.

1. The start does not need to be overpowered but you will need reasonable growth and production capabilities in your capital.
2. I usually go Tradition when going for a CV.
3. It really helps, if I can send a trade route to an AI early in the game. Try to get a good religion as well.
4. Basic 4 city NC on t85-90 is definitely good enough.
5. The easiest way to get a CV is to get some of the early midgame wonders (Sistine, LToP and GlobeT). This is accomplished by getting to Acoustics first (usually around t120 is good enough, sometimes even later) and then beelining Printing Press while building Sistine. You can obviously go for PP first and only then research Acoustics, but I have found that the former tech path is easier to accompish, at least for me. With a rough start I struggle to get to the key techs in time to build these wonders.
6. Then you "have to" get either Uffizi or Louvre. The former is more contested while the latter of course includes opening up Exploration.
7. For Louvre, but also for the Antiquity Sites, it is necessary to slightly beeline Archeology. I have a rough target of reaching it around t170-175. Later than that you risk having several AIs building Archeologists and competing for the same AS. With four cities and Louvre, you need at least 10 AS. Now you have the foundation for a CV. I also like to pick up Eiffel around t200-205.
8. The rest of the game is mostly about sending trade routes to culturally able AIs, using your spies as diplomats and maximizing your science output. The faster you get to Telecoms, Internet and Radar the easier it will be to overtake the culture pools of the AIs. For your first wins you will probably need about 4 Great Musicians. Try to generate two through your Guilds (after building National Visitor Center and preferably getting to Internet as well) and faith buy two. That should be enough to secure a win. Sometimes I need even a fifth/sixth GMu but that comes more down to poor play than anything else.

Was this helpful?

 

[farmerwajj]

That was indeed helpful. A couple questions come to mind...

- Should I immediately pivot to another type of victory if I miss on a religion?
- When do you transition to working specialist slots for great writers, artists, musicians?
- Do you build all three guilds in the same city?
- When do you transition to culture pop/golden age instead of great works?
- Social policy order after tradition is complete?
- Which ideology should I target?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Nizef]

That was indeed helpful. A couple questions come to mind...

- Should I immediately pivot to another type of victory if I miss on a religion?
- When do you transition to working specialist slots for great writers, artists, musicians?
- Do you build all three guilds in the same city?
- When do you transition to culture pop/golden age instead of great works?
- Social policy order after tradition is complete?
- Which ideology should I target?

Thanks a lot!

1. You can definitely win a CV without a religion of your own, but you need to get some good beliefs from the AI religion. Personally I prefer a happiness generating building and something to boost production or growth. Having said this, I don´t "like" playing without my own religion. It adds depth to the whole gaming experience. A good religion should give you at least 50-60 fpt and if you get it up to 100 fpt in the late game, you have set yourself up for a smooth finish. Just as a side note, Shark and I have reached 150-200 fpt and Tiberiu had this crazy game, where he set the "world record" to 642 fpt!! Imaging what you can do with that!
2. I try to work both science and culture specialists "all of the time" and production specialists as often as possible. The Musician´s Guild can be built late in the game. Since most of my CV games go all the way to t280-320, I have found that the MG can be built roughly around/after Plastics. For faster finishes you need it a bit earlier than that.
3. If I have a fantastic city (final population around 35-40), I might build them all there. However, most of the time I build AG in my cap and WG in an expand. The MG can go into any city that has a Garden and the ability to sustain working both slots on demand (count in advance so that your first GMu does not spawn too early). Sometimes I build the MG in my capital after finishing most of the necessary stuff.
4. You should aim for filling all Artists&AS slots and at least get the theming bonus from Writers buildings. Only after that, I could recommend to use additional Writers and Artists for other purposes. Personally I almost never boost my culture by popping Writers, the reason being that I usually have 1-2 slots to fill even in the late game. Obviously, I could pop a Writer, if there still are some Social Policies I need to get.
5. After Tradition, I am usually off to Aesthetics. You also need 2-4 points in Rationalism (At least Scholasticism and I many times go for Free Thought as well, and if I have a good culture output I might finish the tree). Aesthetics need to be finished for the finisher bonus and I like to reach at least Flourishing of the Arts quite early. When you get bored of filling out Tradition as your first tree, you can take two points there (opener+ Aristocracy) and instead fill out the Piety tree. If I go down that route, I first take the Tradition opener and then Piety opener + Organized religion as number 2 and 3. Many times I continue with Mandate of Heaven as number 4. Note that an early Organized religion will increase your chances of getting a religion. Obviously this includes building a Monument in your cities very early on (Expand BO: Shrine, Monument, Granary, Library).
6. If you can sustain the unhappiness from ideology pressure, Freedom is the easiest ideology for a CV and you want to get to Media Culture as soon as you can without compromising your tasks in Aesthetics and Rationalism.

Other things to consider:
- If you have the hammers to win the International Games around the time you hit Telecoms and Internet, it will highly speed up your finishing time.
- For your first games I would recommend to go with one of the really strong civs, like Poland or Babylon. Other good candidates are Brazil, the Aztecs (especially on a Lakes map), Egypt and Polynesia.
- I got my first CV by playing GotM160. I recommend it for you as well. The start is of course much too good, but it is definitely a good training ground.
- The Enjoyable Deity Games thread (EDGE) have many CV challenges. You can check out some of them as well and at least EDGE#57 with India and EDGE#124 with the Aztecs are a little easier than the average CV game.

 

[so_what]

On top of what Nizef said, I would add that CV is a more convoluted victory than SV. In addition to reaching key techs (archaeology, refrigeration, Internet, Radar) in time, you need to have enough production for archaeologists, cultural buildings, and wonders.

It is usually advised that you should be very familiar with fast SV first, which sometimes mean managing an empire with more than 4 cities.

 

[Tiberiu]

Do you build all three guilds in the same city?

Hello!

Nizef already covered most of the stuff but I wanted to write a few comments.

Don't forget that the guilds can be sold and rebuilt elsewhere.
It can be useful to sometimes build the Artist and Writer guilds somewhere where you need borders to expand faster (for example you settle a city in a good spot and need to reach a Luxury or Natural Wonder or something contested. Or just to "steal" as much land as possible in a place closer to other cities. Then, the good time to delete and rebuild them in the city that has Garden & National Epic is after the great people spawn. Sure, you could say that production is being wasted in the process but I think it can be useful, I find myself using this mechanic in most of my games. Also, sometimes the capital is busy building other things, and it's better to build the guilds elsewhere instead of keeping them unbuilt. The culture adds up, helping to get policies and making our civilization harder to be affected by another ideology.
Usually the guilds end up in the capital but for a while if they are built elsewhere the capital can grow more easily and also focus on more production.

Also I would like to add that Cultural Victory can be obtained with help from our military. We can conquer other cities that contain great works of art, or, probably even better, if somebody close to us has the highest culture output, the cultural victory might be obtained faster simply by capturing/eliminating him. Try to capture enemy prophets, hopefully they can plant a holy site and you can use the faith to buy musicians at the endgame. And also try to capture archeologists! If there is an open spot with a dig site, AIs tend to send archeologist without escorting them. So if you have some unit (preferably a fast one like a Knight or Lancer), you can capture them and this saves a lot of production. Even while at peace, military units can be useful to stay on top of dig sites so that the rival civs can't dig there, this buys us time to produce our own archeologists.

I think culture victory is obtained easier if you try to have control of the world congress in order to propose and pass useful resolutions such as : cultural heritage sites, world fair, world religion, historical landmarks.(This one is very useful to generate tourism out of all your improvements - with hotel, airport etc). Obviously International Games as the last one.

Try to not let others keep ally status with Cultural CSs, as you will have a harder time becoming influent on them. Rigging elections and doing coups can be useful.