Deity

[DirtyFinger]

So, fellow Deity players, how are you holding up ?

I mean, it's pretty easy to play a successful game on deity if you spend half your time reloading after every bad dungeon or village event. If you play halfway serious, though, then it gets a bit hairy.

The first barbarian surge is a killer if you don't secure your city much more earlier than you normally do. Meeting an unfriendly AI civ often spells certain doom, since they start one more settler and about five times as many units. Plus, they cheat anyway.

But at least it's fun.

So far, my early game strategies that seem to work are:

• Put a unit in chokepoints. They rarely get attacked by barbs and if they block access to you empire the barbs on the other side tend to ignore you completely. It helps if can keep the chokepoints inside your cultural borders, because that will prevent attacks from animals and hill giants. Unlike barbarians they won't walk around you if you're outside your borders.
• Leave dungeons alone but destroy lairs, unless they are at the other side of a chokepoint. At least when using a non recon unit.
• Explore villages with a turn left in case you have to leg it.
• If you don't have at least one warrior back home by turn 15, you're dead. Stop exploring with your warrior before that happens.
• Base your starting city location on how well it performs with in the first few rounds. Think size 5. Your real cities can come later after survival.

Thoughts ?

 

[JonathanStrange]

I play Deity/Immortal level mostly (with Raging Barbarians, Normal Speed).

So much depends on the map (Pangaea or Islands or...), start position (close to enemy AI, peninsula, coast) or etc., that it's hard for me to be too specific but:

As I play the Ljosalfar mostly, I send out their two relatively fast scouts out looking for villages but avoiding exploring lairs.

I like riversides and coasts for city sites as, ironically, the Elves start with the Exploration tech but often do well avoiding road building as much as possible. Roads help enemies and Elves are fast enough in forests without them, so riversides/coasts mean easily connected cities. City sites that offer additional defense are helpful, my favorite was a hill adjacent to a river with a desert flood plain on the farside: enemies always attacked across the river and uphill.

I usually queue 4 or 5 warriors right off esp. if I'm on a big map with barbarians and rivals close by. I've had too many nascent civs squashed by Orthus or Sheelba or whoever (with 2 or 3 stacks of ten warriors or axemen each really early) to ignore defense. Sometimes it's insane: it's not unusual to be attacked by several stacks from different nations really early, esp. on large maps. I always accompany settlers with two military units.

Focused research always helps and on Deity level it's even more true: get basic techs immediately useful for economic, civics and military goals. For example, the Ljosalfars early economic/military goals dovetail beautifully with Education, Agriculture, and Archery. They can and should do early research in these areas rather than either basic research of all simple techs or deep research in one line.

Expand like a maniac; actually it's hard to be maniacal esp. in comparison to the AI civs but seriously, get those settlers with escorts going: the Deity level civs are all about expanding, conquering barb cities, destroying yours.

Deity is like the other levels only more so; so if you've successful Civ-specific strategies, they'll often need to be adjusted and re-prioritized. For example, I could delay the Ljosalfars' archery line quite awhile at Noble level, but at Deity, I need better defenders early. I make even more use of my civ and race traits. If I have like Raider, Defender, Dexterous: for the Ljos, cheap palisades, 100% extra pillage money, +1 archery strength, means I'll have palisaded cities sending out archer raiders as much as possible. Raiders distract the and make money; their deaths are the cost of business.

EDIT: Actually, there is an older thread (among others), titled Newbie asking for advice that works, imo, for most everyone. It's interesting reading at the very least.

 

[Sephi]

deity difficulty doesn't mean that much. A deity marathon small game with 50% more AI players to make the world crowded is probably easier than some emporer quick games.

It's difficult to give advice to games without knowing details like how much space the AI or Barbs have? What options are on? Raging barbs? etc.

Anyway, one idea I find pretty useful. Either go full warmonger path and use all those cities to support your elite fighters and keep up in the tech race. Or go the builder path and try to reach some powerful stuff the AI doesn't understand how to counter before it is too late.

 

[PaulusIII]

I've tried Deity a few times but found the difficulty... just not fun anymore. I think I've been forced to quit unwinnable situations so often that I wonder whether Deity CAN even be won at my settings. (For the record, I mostly play Pangaea/Large)

And the one time I actually got anywhere past the first 150 turns I still got stomped by two huge stacks because the Clan and the Doviello were on the map.

Maybe I'm just not skilled enough but with the number of Immortal games I've won by now I find that hard to believe...

 

[JonathanStrange]

I enjoy the Deity challenge. I never play on small maps so if they're easier on Deity, I'll have to take the word of those who do - I prefer large maps, plenty of land, and 8 or so civilizations.

Someday, I hope that Deity doesn't mean AI civs sending out huge early rushes of heavily promoted troops when even on an ideal location, I couldn't hope to match their numbers. I do like knowing that I'd prepared for their onslaught and could weather their storm of arrows, axes, and blades.

The FFH2 game feels very different from the regular Civ IV BTS in the early game. I sometimes visit the BTS forums and see the difference in the early game. Once I made a suggestion - to someone who'd asked for suggestions - only to be taken to task for saying a barbarian invasion of 3 archers could have been defeated had the city be sited on a hill, across the river, and garrisoned by 2 or 3 warriors with maybe the Guerilla I promotion, instead of having no or only one defender.

The angry answer was that one shouldn't plan for things that MIGHT happen and placing a city on a hill instead of scooping up more resources was insane. When someone's going to state rainy day planning is crazy, and the barbarian invasion itself was unfair, and why garrison at all on turn 50, I knew I was not in Fall From Heaven 2 anymore. So I'm back...

 

[PaulusIII]

I enjoy the Deity challenge. I never play on small maps so if they're easier on Deity, I'll have to take the word of those who do - I prefer large maps, plenty of land, and 8 or so civilizations.

Someday, I hope that Deity doesn't mean AI civs sending out huge early rushes of heavily promoted troops when even on an ideal location, I couldn't hope to match their numbers. I do like knowing that I'd prepared for their onslaught and could weather their storm of arrows, axes, and blades.

I just wish they'd properly take a white peace when they just suicided 10 warriors against my garrison and killed 1 warrior of mine by sheer luck. Thank goodness the FfH AI doesn't have the sense yet to use the Shock promotion. (And where in Agares' name do they get that load of promotions, anyway???)

The FFH2 game feels very different from the regular Civ IV BTS in the early game. I sometimes visit the BTS forums and see the difference in the early game. Once I made a suggestion - to someone who'd asked for suggestions - only to be taken to task for saying a barbarian invasion of 3 archers could have been defeated had the city be sited on a hill, across the river, and garrisoned by 2 or 3 warriors with maybe the Guerilla I promotion, instead of having no or only one defender.

Was that by any chance the Vedic Aryan event? That triggers a big barbarian attack at a time they shouldn't be attacking you. It's broken - it should only happen to players who already have the capability to build archers but they don't always go for the player with archery.

The angry answer was that one shouldn't plan for things that MIGHT happen and placing a city on a hill instead of scooping up more resources was insane. When someone's going to state rainy day planning is crazy, and the barbarian invasion itself was unfair, and why garrison at all on turn 50, I knew I was not in Fall From Heaven 2 anymore. So I'm back...

In FFH the question on high levels is easy; if you're not garrisoned properly by turn 50, you're dead. But in Civ4 I find that question more difficult; on the high levels there you're usually less likely to get an attack you cannot get yourself out of, you know earlier when the attack is coming and can prepare accordingly (WHEOOH!) and you're more likely to get out of the war by accepting tribute demands or something similar. Early FfH does not have that.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It is pretty ******ed in BtS though, because it's always 1 civ bearing the brunt of that, and most of the time civs are going to focus on building for economy early on, and get away with it. Trying to compete with a civ who did that when you focused on defense early is a big pain.

In FfH, everyone eats a serious attack from barbarians and most civs have to fight other civs early on too. You're not hamstringing yourself by building a lot of units early because it's what everyone has to do, and does.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I think it was Monkeyfinger's post - I've forgotten in which thread and when (at least months and months ago) that first made me think I wasn't crazy queuing up 5-6 warriors on turn 1. I'd been doing that on Deity 'cause too many attacks were being launched by the AI on turn 25-30 with at least a dozen or two enemies showing up.

Sometimes everyone was invited to the party and there were two or three AIs (good, neutral, evil) showing up to hit the pinata that called itself the Ljosalfar nation.

So Monkeyfinger's indirect confirmation was at least a sign I wasn't just one of those gamers who does whatever he wants and then wonders what happened - or that he was crazy too.

 

[JonathanStrange]

In FFH the question on high levels is easy; if you're not garrisoned properly by turn 50, you're dead. But in Civ4 I find that question more difficult; on the high levels there you're usually less likely to get an attack you cannot get yourself out of, you know earlier when the attack is coming and can prepare accordingly (WHEOOH!) and you're more likely to get out of the war by accepting tribute demands or something similar. Early FfH does not have that.

I think it was the Vedic Aryan event - and I still say be prepared. Would it have killed him to have somebody waiting for the barbarians?

I really forgot which forum I was on, so I gave more of a FFH2 answer, but I still think the player should've built on a hill, should've exploited his civ's traits and starting techs, and ... but I digress...

 

[PaulusIII]

I think it was the Vedic Aryan event - and I still say be prepared. Would it have killed him to have somebody waiting for the barbarians?

I really forgot which forum I was on, so I gave more of a FFH2 answer, but I still think the player should've built on a hill, should've exploited his civ's traits and starting techs, and ... but I digress...

But the problem with the Vedic Aryan Event is - it happens in how many percent of the games? 10 percent? 1 percent? While griping about the event is commonplace, I've actually not lost that many games because of it.

It's preparing for something which is not going to happen in 99% of the cases. It's preparing for something which should not happen (as I mentioned it's only meant to hit people with Archery). It's preparing for something which would cause most players to say '**** this' and start another game. And that's why you'll rarely find someone defending against them.

And yes - on FFH Deity I zealously seek out hills to set cities on. Because unlike regular Civ, I know that attack is coming for me, and I will be glad I put my city on that hill.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

For my part I never got zerged by that event. Ever. Every time I got it they either wandered off for other lands or ran into my Great Wall.

 

[DirtyFinger]

i got trashed so often I found out that even I noticed that you have to build more than one warrior before turn 30 to even enjoy the sensation of being killed by the AI.

 

[scutarii]

deity is for defensive playstyle and therefore goals are pretty limited: AoL, ToM, etc. Diplomacy via empyreian could buy some time but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[DirtyFinger]

Very good tactic to protect your unit stacks when invading:
If you have temporary summons (spectres, sand lions, elementals, etc.) then leave between your and the enemy's units (after attacking and killing something). The AI tends to go for easy pickings and doesn't distinguish between real units and units that vanish soon anyway.

Apparently summoned units don't disappear at the end of your turn but just before the beginning of your next turn.