Deity - HERE I COME! :)

[jayjackson]

Put the finishing touches on my Immortal game for VVV last night, and am making the final jump starting today to Deity.

I figured it was better to just get to the "real" difficulty before really tweaking and going for fast finishes. No one is going to care about a non-Deity fast finish.

So, hopefully in a day or so, I'll be joining the 2% of you in the player-base with a Deity win on CiV! I think I am going to go for Science with Babylon, I've saved them on my League of Nations for VVV strictly for my first Deity game, just to give myself a really good CiV for my first attempt.

Anyway, I know this is a low-content post, but was just happy that I'd already moved through the difficulties in limited play (I wait for the "final" every CiV to start "competing") and excited to start Deity play, so wanted to share.

Wish me luck!

 

[danaphanous]

well good luck then! Post back with pictures and story when you win! I got confidence in you!

Some early differences between immortal and Deity are:

A) Deity available city spots are taken much quicker, make sure to optimize your early game and get out settlers ASAP, otherwise you may be stuck with only 1-2 expos are worse then average spots.

B) They build up armies faster and to larger size and often rush you quite early, watch your neighbors. Many players bribe them off. I prefer to fight them off personally even though I realize that's not optimal it's far more fun. For the first game if you see someone you suspect may attack you might settle the closest city to them in a defensible position. Makes a world of difference in surviving if you can tempt the AI into slamming all their troops into an early hills/walls mountain city and it gives your troops training getting them early levels.

C) They have tons of early gold. Get the iron/horse techs earlier then usual and connect them up to sell for as much early gold as you can manage. Buying things like the last library and settler and caravans help acclerate your game a lot.

I would start with Pangaea as you ease into it. It's easier because you meet everyone early, plenty of neighbors to bribe to attack aggressors or make trades with, and more land so the spots disappear a little later then on island or continent maps. There are plenty of Deity horror stories from small continents where you appear next to shaka, attila, genghis, japan, assyria, etc. alone and they declare on turn 50 and never make peace setting you way behind. You can win these wars but them going honor with tons of troops and possible tech lead makes it difficult. Then you play from even farther behind. If you plan for a peaceful Babylon science victory pangaea is probably the best map-type. You might also consider Korea, I personally like them better as a science civ. My first Deity science victory was with the Maya, but they are a little less straightforward to optimize. Your goal should be spaceship by turn 300, many games this is sufficient to win. Some games where an AI runs away they finish as early as T270 but without human-level micro they can't seem to get below that.

 

[poxpower]

It only feels different when you try domination, for the other victory types the AI really isn't competitive enough to stop you just staying in your corner and winning.

Domination is super tedious though lol, so many units everywhere. SO MANY.

 

[jayjackson]

well good luck then! Post back with pictures and story when you win! I got confidence in you!

Some early differences between immortal and Deity are:

A) Deity available city spots are taken much quicker, make sure to optimize your early game and get out settlers ASAP, otherwise you may be stuck with only 1-2 expos are worse then average spots.

B) They build up armies faster and to larger size and often rush you quite early, watch your neighbors. Many players bribe them off. I prefer to fight them off personally even though I realize that's not optimal it's far more fun. For the first game if you see someone you suspect may attack you might settle the closest city to them in a defensible position. Makes a world of difference in surviving if you can tempt the AI into slamming all their troops into an early hills/walls mountain city and it gives your troops training getting them early levels.

C) They have tons of early gold. Get the iron/horse techs earlier then usual and connect them up to sell for as much early gold as you can manage. Buying things like the last library and settler and caravans help acclerate your game a lot.

I would start with Pangaea as you ease into it. It's easier because you meet everyone early, plenty of neighbors to bribe to attack aggressors or make trades with, and more land so the spots disappear a little later then on island or continent maps. There are plenty of Deity horror stories from small continents where you appear next to shaka, attila, genghis, japan, assyria, etc. alone and they declare on turn 50 and never make peace setting you way behind. You can win these wars but them going honor with tons of troops and possible tech lead makes it difficult. Then you play from even farther behind. If you plan for a peaceful Babylon science victory pangaea is probably the best map-type. You might also consider Korea, I personally like them better as a science civ. My first Deity science victory was with the Maya, but they are a little less straightforward to optimize. Your goal should be spaceship by turn 300, many games this is sufficient to win. Some games where an AI runs away they finish as early as T270 but without human-level micro they can't seem to get below that.

Yeah, I'm playing Pangaea with Babylon with the science victory idea at least at game start. I'd post a screenshot of the start but I don't want to break HoF rules of playing with specific advice. Once the game is submitted, I'll definitely share along with a write-up.

Honestly, the biggest reason I moved up as fast as I did was I noticed the major difference in the gold/resources the AIs and the CS had. Some of the the better strategies on this forum (Acken's Freedom Science, for instance) are heavily reliant on being able to trade for gold with the AI, and also with the AI having that gold available to invest in RA's.

How I was setting up my VVV attempt was saving Korea, Poland, Babylon and the Maya for the games at higher difficulty, and I'd already won with Korea and Poland. Thus, it came down to Babylon and the Maya, and so I'll use the Maya for a different game now.

Even though I still need maps for Map Quest on VVV I am playing it on Pangaea, just because the majority of the strategies and such that are talked about here are geared to it, especially on Deity. I'm a big reader so I definitely want to try to apply what I've read and learned on my first attempt at the big show.

Thanks a lot for your post! I've got a thread in the Let's Plays forum but I just got my first submissions to HoF accepted last night so I haven't been able to post a lot of in-game stuff and hadn't really gotten much conversation going over there! Your post was definitely helpful to refocus my thinking on the move up!

 

[jayjackson]

It only feels different when you try domination, for the other victory types the AI really isn't competitive enough to stop you just staying in your corner and winning.

Domination is super tedious though lol, so many units everywhere. SO MANY.

Yeah, and as my games have been going later as they've generally been my first attempt at a level, you really see the carpets everywhere once the game gets to those later years.

I've been putting off going for a DomV on my little quest so far just because its generally not the way I prefer to win, and as you say, it seems very tedious unless you have a hyper-focused rush Civ. Not that I dislike warfare, but I'm trying to get all these games in for VVV, so playing epic-style military games is kind of counter-productive unless I'm laser-focused for it for that game.

I definitely intend to do more of them once I get focused in on the skill level, though. My Immortal win was an easier win than my recent Emperor win, so I'm hopeful I'll be able to adapt quickly and just stay on Deity long term -- and hopefully contribute long-term to the community.

 

[danaphanous]

You don't have to be trying for a domination vic to have wars. True, it probably takes some turns off your finish time but war can be a fun way to spice up your games.

I just played an Aztec immortal game trying to see how effective an early-jaguar wipeout rush was of of a neighbor utilizing their culture kills ability and UU before it outdated. I took down the huns capital by turn 50 with nothing but jags and archers then had the space to fill in like 10 cities on standard. Won't win any speed records but it was fun to crush the huns before they turned their inevitable sights on me or had horse archers. I found this strategy to be really hard on Deity though because the two AI cities outproduce you. You need to conquer very quickly before the respond.

Choosing to play a larger empire with liberty is also a good way to absorb wars without being set back. Liberty is already built to acquire extra cities and your new cities get a bonus hammer to build troops faster, so if you go to war and get a few cities: no big deal. Your core cities are also far from the fight and your empire far less affected, able to pump out troops and send them to the front lines and protect the little, less important cities where the battle is happening. Many liberty games I don't even bribe to protect myself, I just crush the rushes manually

 

[ahrmak]

Are you playing just for the achievement?
I won deity by playing Germany
I chose tiny map, fractal, and epic pace. Set up for one opponent (Venice) and did rampaging hordes. Built 2 scouts then harvested barbarians until I just swarmed him and took the city...
he was busy beating off barbarians while my army just got larger lol
built one settler so I could have a larger army and didn't worry about what else I built after that

 

[jayjackson]

Are you playing just for the achievement?
I won deity by playing Germany
I chose tiny map, fractal, and epic pace. Set up for one opponent (Venice) and did rampaging hordes. Built 2 scouts then harvested barbarians until I just swarmed him and took the city...
he was busy beating off barbarians while my army just got larger lol
built one settler so I could have a larger army and didn't worry about what else I built after that

Not at all. I don't think I'll have any problem getting competitive on the level, and the achievement I'm going for is Veni, Vidi, Vici in the CivFanatics HoF. I plan on establishing at Deity and improving from there.

I wasn't going for any crazy victory times, but Immortal was pretty much a cake walk, so...

I'm playing Standard/Standard Pangaea with High Seas. One of my last science games was Emperor on a Fractal though, so I do love that map script. I'm playing Pangaea this game but I've got to do 20 different map scrips to complete VVV so I play on all sorts of maps.

There's literally no way I could play anything below Immortal again, except for when I have to to finish games, thats when I'll do tiny/duel.

The way I'm approaching this game is essentially Acken's Freedom Science Guide. His guide was extremely helpful to focus my thoughts pre-game, especially. That man is one hell of a player.

 

[jayjackson]

You don't have to be trying for a domination vic to have wars. True, it probably takes some turns off your finish time but war can be a fun way to spice up your games.

I usually have at least one war, and since my games tended longer while I was moving through the difficulties on BNW, I've used nukes in like 3 of the last 4 games. I just haven't focused in on a DomV yet and I do need at least one for VVV! I love to war!

I just played an Aztec immortal game trying to see how effective an early-jaguar wipeout rush was of of a neighbor utilizing their culture kills ability and UU before it outdated. I took down the huns capital by turn 50 with nothing but jags and archers then had the space to fill in like 10 cities on standard. Won't win any speed records but it was fun to crush the huns before they turned their inevitable sights on me or had horse archers. I found this strategy to be really hard on Deity though because the two AI cities outproduce you. You need to conquer very quickly before the respond.

It is funny you should mention the Aztecs because they were the first Civ I met in this game. Monty's already come with a DoF, denounced me, and I think I got him to go away with some horses, but I haven't actually bribed him onto Shurby of Assyria yet.

I guess it'll put me about 5 turns behind on NC, I figure I finish at worst T95. I had to hard build a Bowman to help deter Monty's crazy arse. I've played around 60 turns, I just got a phone call and needed some time to decompress so I came back to the forums first.

Choosing to play a larger empire with liberty is also a good way to absorb wars without being set back. Liberty is already built to acquire extra cities and your new cities get a bonus hammer to build troops faster, so if you go to war and get a few cities: no big deal. Your core cities are also far from the fight and your empire far less affected, able to pump out troops and send them to the front lines and protect the little, less important cities where the battle is happening. Many liberty games I don't even bribe to protect myself, I just crush the rushes manually

I've got to admit, I don't play liberty very often at all... unless the Civ is just screaming wide, which hasn't been the case so far with me as you can target your games for HoF/VVV. I've got to improve that as well, but I'm usually very comfortable at between 4-6 cities and usually think of ways to talk myself into just staying Trad/Tall.

Excellent posts, guys.

 

[jayjackson]

Well, I got my NC by T87, but Monty declared. I fought him off but I did make a mistake and settle City 4 one tile off from where I wanted. Was a lot going on, but I'm not gonna give up on the city, just a bad error.

Lost no cities, no troops, no pillaging. Without that stupid error I couldn't be happier with first 90 turns.

 

[Sclb]

Well, knowing how to win on deity quickly will help other conditions for VVV as it makes you finish a game faster. Many said that domination on deity is difficult, but culture imo is the most difficult VC on deity due to many advantages AI had especially if they manage to build many wonders.