Difficulty levelvel

[superpowerfixer]

Gonna disagree here, if this was true there wouldn't be a strong constant population playing Civ 5 still. You can verify that on steam numbers. For me I just wonder why the devs can't work enough to give to both camps. If that means charging 100+ dollars for the game then so be it. (Let's face it games have been 50 or 60 bucks for a while now). But yes I'd say for now and probably 7 will have a similar outcome. It'll take a while before lifelong Civ fans finally stop blindly giving money away for content they know will be average at best. I kinda think of it in the way of PoE versus D3. D3 everyone pretty much told the "hardcore fans" that wasn't the way people play anymore. Fast forward to today and I doubt D3 generates much income. PoE is still very popular and with cosmetics probably does circles around D3 sales.

I think my main gripe is this: if people want an AI but Firaxis doesn't want to hire people to code it, can we meet in the middle somewhere on price so I can go back to buying good iterations of Civ?

Civ v is alive because of the many modpacks and conversions mods that civ 6 simply lacks.(for mp nq and lek to anno domini/vox/superpower)
With firaxis denying the dll file it might the last truly moddable civ game,which means civ v will still have great numbers even when civ 7/8 are relased.

 

[Casworon]

It might be fatalist but I cant help empathise on some level.

The non release of the DLL is the real killer for me. Vox Populi ensures that Civ V is going to remain installed on my hard drive and it is probably my favourite 4x game of all time.

Will Civ VI remain installed? In its current form maybe not. Make no mistake I still have great fun with it and it's the one my friends want to play multiplayer but after a few deity rounds of stomping the AI I'm straight back to the workshop trying to find ways to make it more challenging.

I'm a massive fan of the civ series but I know I'm going to be having some second thoughts about picking up Civ VII. Maybe the series has just moved past players such as me at this point.

It's not the biggest deal. People are still going to be having fun and I'll still have Vox.

 

[AntSou]

@oSiyeza

I think there's a chance you may have overplayed how much harder Immortal is. It's not all that different from Emperor other than you'll likely be lagging behind for a bit longer. You'll still lose occasionally, of course, but both difficulties start with two Settlers. If you've won on Emperor you can win on Immortal and still play pretty chill.

Deity is a weird different thing. It makes the early game boring imo due to the early warrior spam, wonders which you have no chance of building and the 3 AI Settlers which on some play-throughs may leave you with nothing but Tundra. It's not particularly entertaining and the early game challenge feels artificial and repetitive after some playthroughs. I stuck to it because the AI yield boosts feel appropriate on Deity in the mid-late game. However recently I went back to Immortal because it's fun to be able to start the game with a Holy Site, pick some dumb*** pantheons and have at least a small chance at early wonders.
---

Btw, for those who want a more difficult game but aren't really fans of Deity early game, here's a workaround: Play Immortal (or whatever difficulty you're on) with World Age set to Old. The human player is much better at using mountain adjacencies for Campuses, but with these settings it will be more of a challenge to get high yield Campuses.There's also less hills so enemy troops are less likely to get bogged down due to terrain. I find them to be marginally more competent in war.

The non release of the DLL is the real killer for me. Vox Populi ensures that Civ V is going to remain installed on my hard drive and it is probably my favourite 4x game of all time.

It's not been confirmed it won't be released. Modders like Gedemon and pokiehl (I think) have argued there's no logic behind 2k fearing mods might compete with their paid content, but this could still be the reason they are not releasing it atm.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Civ v is alive because of the many modpacks and conversions mods that civ 6 simply lacks.(for mp nq and lek to anno domini/vox/superpower)
With firaxis denying the dll file it might the last truly moddable civ game,which means civ v will still have great numbers even when civ 7/8 are relased.

There's also the fact of lower graphical requirements leading to people sticking with V. My laptop gets hotter than the Sun running Civ6, hence why I finally got it on Xbox. I've read several times that Civ is one of those games like Football Manager that is the only game that people own, and therefore the only game they play, hence the very high numbers playing vs copies sold ratio for these games.

There is also the fact that V was an incredibly popular game and was a real breakout hit for Firaxis, when Civ finally went mainstream. I also remember the endless complaints about how the game had been dumbed down to reach a wider audience, all the IV players who refused to upgrade to V as it wasn't a challenge....

 

[oSiyeza]

I am really curious, from your experience, at what turn (standard speed) does the AI usually win on king? that specific game you mentioned, at what turn did you have the last minute defeat? From lots of testing we know that Deity wins usually around T300-T350 standard speed.

This is quite difficult to assess properly. I would say usually, around turn 250-300 I’m close to winning often. I like science and culture victories the most, but I always wipe out 2 or 3 big civs in the game. So when I don’t make a terrible mistake thinking I can conquer a civ and totally misplace the trust in my army, I’m in 1st or 2nd position in every ranking late game. Then, when I’m just 5 turns to victory, some other **** gets a religious or diplomatic victory .

I used most of the times a mod that aim to slow the pace in late ages (on top of 30 other mods I love like the wild life mod). So my times may not be the common ones. Half my games, I also used the Real Strategy AI mod that makes the AI focus on specific victories. Anyway. As far as my playstyle… I will use an example:

My last match was on the apocalypse mode. It was a fairly long 400 turns game on King. By turn 200 I was dominating. The game was so slow cause I spent like 100 turns on repairs... I was on future tech waiting for the comets to come, because I really wanted to see them. Also I was aiming for a science victory because it seemed the only way out of an apocalypse.

The comets start to fall and one of my cities of 20 pop gets obliterated. I then realized I maybe was too late to escape the planet. I start to rush the space race while the comets fall down. Each turn a city getting destroyed. A solar flare destroys my spaceports. I panic (good kind of panic). I get to launch the first two space projects and about to finish the third…

The game ends, the stupid Cree won a diplomatic victory because all the Aid emergencies I was ignoring when the comets fall…

So I guess my civilization got depressed cause we lost the diplomacy game, the entire planet gave up on life because of the Cree, and we all were doomed by the comets. I had fun.

I publish articles in peer-reviewed journals, which is some evidence I am not a complete idiot, and yet when I first started playing Civ VI, having played all previous Civ games since the early 1990s, I almost lost my first game on... Warlord. I would have likely had my posterior handed to me on a silver platter by the AI had I played on Prince, or higher. Especially now, with all the different mechanics introduced in the expansions, I find it almost impossible to believe a newcomer would handle any of the higher difficulty levels.

I also publish papers in peer-reviewed journals, but as you saw. I doomed the world with my reckless planning, so I don’t think in my case that is evidence of me not being a complete idiot.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

They exist, go to youtube.

Youtubers (and their popularity) are an interesting source. Because gives us an insight on this "atention seeking - achievement obsessed - pathological shortcut sef deception " culture of videogames, that actually exists.

man, I hate these kinds of answers. why are you dodging? I specifically asked you to name a single YouTuber that is "elite" or, honestly, just a good player would be enough. And you tell me to go to YouTube. Mate, I have been to YouTube. I have looked for hours. I was full-on Diogenes. I did not find a single good player. If you have someone in mind, why not just say their name? Or, if you cannot pinpoint to anyone, why make the claim in the first place?

If there is a community of elitist Civ 6 players on YouTube, I want to find them! So far, I haven't found anyone who regularly wins games before T200..

I tell you that deity save scum happens, and I tell you that I have done it in Civ V. Cause if you invest 10 hours in a Deity game and you have a bad time that ruins something you have been working for, you can be sure many people will feel the actual need to go back and fix it.

I never doubted that, I simply do not see a problem with it at all. reload is in and of itself not a bad practice.

This is quite difficult to assess properly. I would say usually, around turn 250-300 I’m close to winning often. I like science and culture victories the most, but I always wipe out 2 or 3 big civs in the game. So when I don’t make a terrible mistake thinking I can conquer a civ and totally misplace the trust in my army, I’m in 1st or 2nd position in every ranking late game. Then, when I’m just 5 turns to victory, some other **** gets a religious or diplomatic victory .

So do I understand you right that you do not generally play unmodded games? In that case your numbers won't do much for me since I like to look at the unmodded game. I would be hugely interested in when the unmodded Prince AI goes to space/wins the game, and if it is around T400, like in your games (I understand you correctly, do I?)

I really don't see the point in complaining about difficulty or ai.
The series will never have a functioning ai and dificulty ever again and you are gonna have to deal with it.The new fans don't like those things and they are the majority now.
Oh and forget about mods ever fixing those things anymore.

Complaining often gets you somewhere. It is much more effective than passivity and defeatism.

You may be right, and this trend may continue on to Civ 7. In that case I likely will not be buying that game at all. I did the same for Civ 6, I tested it for a long time on a friends account until I was finally convinced it was worth its money.

Gonna disagree here, if this was true there wouldn't be a strong constant population playing Civ 5 still.

Good argument. Consider this:

Civ 6 is the newer game. They invest thousands of dollars into marketing. It has more features. Yet Civ 5 was still for the longest time the more popular game. Imagine if Civ 6 didn't have ***loads of money poured into advertising for a sec. The game would be down the drain. Civ 6 is a pretty unpopular game if you really think about it, especially compared to Civ 5 which was beloved. Without all the "help", Civ 5 would still be played more than 6, and indeed on some days it is..

Which just goes to show that a decent amount of players valued a lot of things that are now gone, and that a decent amount of new players only really comes for the "new toy syndrome".

I think my main gripe is this: if people want an AI but Firaxis doesn't want to hire people to code it, can we meet in the middle somewhere on price so I can go back to buying good iterations of Civ?

They don't even have to build a new AI or invest much into the existing system, or hire new people.

The most insulting thing is that the kinds of fixes necessary are not difficult or time intensive. All FXS has to do is adjusting the god damn AI flavor for districts and improvements and they'd already be twice as strong. It's something Civ 5 modders managed to do in a few days or weeks. This, plus them not releasing the code, just ticks me off.

 

[oSiyeza]

man, I hate these kinds of answers. why are you dodging? I specifically asked you to name a single YouTuber that is "elite" or, honestly, just a good player would be enough. And you tell me to go to YouTube. Mate, I have looked for hours. I was full-on Diogenes. I did not find a single good player. If you have someone in mind, why not just say their name? Or, if you cannot pinpoint to anyone, why make the claim in the first place?

I dont say they are ellite, more like they talk as if they are. I watched a fair ammount youtube videos, but I dont followed them cause I did not like their videos. I did not find a civ 6 youtuber I liked enough to follow.

I did not consider necesary to give specific evidence to attest that such a thing as cheating, rerolling, or save scumming exists, but ok.

I just did a random search on deity lets plays. The first result I found is from a youtuber called PotatoMacWhiskey, I tried the first video I found. At the mark 00:44 seconds he does not like his starting position and start rerolling.

Here you have, evidence of rerolling bad starts in deity.

PS: Im not claiming this guy is a bad player. I have only seen one minute of his video. I just looked for a deity civ youtuber to use as example.

Is also interesting to note the popularity of channels such as the one from The Spiffing Brit. With more than a million followers, who does videos only on how to cheat and exploit games, and has a very popular video series on Civ 6. This is not an example of a bad player, but is an example on cheating and exploiting the game being a thing.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I've seen the player you mention before. Probably the most famous Civ 6 YouTuber and maybe not a good example. Anyway. He is, sadly, not a very good player. I turned it off because it was painful to watch. Not the reloading, mind you, but the decisionmaking and oversights.

Maybe you meant to say "elitist" instead of "elite player"? That fits like a T. Because you definitely did use the word "elite player" in conjunction with YT. What a shame, I thought finally someone was going to show me a competent YouTuber. It's okay though, maybe at some point I can fill that roll and y'all can complain about me

 

[oSiyeza]

I've seen the player you mention before. Probably the most famous Civ 6 YouTuber and maybe not a good example. Anyway. He is, sadly, not a very good player. I turned it off because it was painful to watch. Not the reloading, mind you, but the decisionmaking and oversights.

Maybe you meant to say "elitist" instead of "elite player"? That fits like a T. Because you definitely did use the word "elite player" in conjunction with YT. What a shame, I thought finally someone was going to show me a competent YouTuber. It's okay though, maybe at some point I can fill that roll and y'all can complain about me

I used the quote marks to mean irony. Im afraid to say Im not aware of genuine good youtubers that play Civ 6. I meant players that play on deity, and probably not play honestly but nonetheless are in the 5% that has the achievement. The whole point was to say that of that 5%, most were probably players that win with cheap tactics. Also dont mean that rerolling is always cheap. I dont think rerolling is the same as save suming, but just wanted to show an example I could find easily.

I have to say, however, that I find some of the "The Spiffing Brit" vids. Interesting, not gamewise in a conventional sense, cause he does not play seriously. But interesting nonetheless.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

If there is a community of elitist Civ 6 players on YouTube, I want to find them! So far, I haven't found anyone who regularly wins games before T200.

Not easy to find players who play on youtube who constantly win pre-200.
Many of them play Small Maps with 5 AI and still play long drawn out games.
They love to Wonder Build.

Gamer Grampz is probably one of the few YouTube Civ VI players that wins pre-200.
He seems to play mostly on Standard Maps against 7 AI.
He seems to add in New and Wet options as most people do on YouTube.
He likes to watch the Chinese Players and learn from them.
Not Elite but better than most other Civ VI Youtubers.
At least he plays Standard Sized Maps.
He edits his videos which seems to be all the rage these days.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaGxTImj_nhq-EZ7VAhaukA/featured

 

[criZp]

What are the chinese players doing that other people aren't doing?

 

[Icicle]

So time to weigh in here. The AI is bad, we all know this. Difficulty level doesn't effect the AI at all as far as I can tell though. I wish it did.

There are two types of civ players in my experience. There are those who play civ as a strategy game and those who play it as a simulation. For the former type, deity is often the only level you can make the game fun at, and even then it sometimes fails. For the latter type honestly any difficulty will do.

The thing is with civ 6 especially little things at the start make a huge difference. Starting with no production v. starting next to mount Roraima makes far more of a difference than playing at Prince v. Deity, imo. This is why 90% of people who complain about how civ is too easy are sort of full of it because they restart if they don't get ideal conditions. That doesn't mean they're wrong to complain about difficulty but it also doesn't mean they actually know from their own experience because even if the AI was bumped up they'd still just restart until the AI made mistakes.

If you actually play the game through no matter how badly you get screwed by the start up or your own decision making, you can have a lot of fun probably around Emperor level even as a player who doesn't care much for min-maxing. For example I just had my first game in forever get totally screwed by an awful start position and then failing to get a religion after investing a ton in it (I pretty much never do that so was kind of flailing about trying to get it right). I ended up very far behind because of it. Winning at the end of that was a lot more satisfying, and a lot closer, and required a lot more effort, then those who just restart until they get a perfect setup and reload every time they make a bad decision.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

What are the chinese players doing that other people aren't doing?

Playing more efficient I suppose.
Seems to be an Ancient Secret.
Calgon... Take Me Away!!

 

[ombak]

People generally don't think they're elite unless they're ultra-competitive and/or there is a category that clearly labels them elite (professional sports league, top school, list of billionaires, etc.)

Perhaps more relevant though, many people think they are representative of their group, when generally they are not. That is to say, if you don't restart or reroll, that is no indication of what the average player does. I didn't interpret anything in this thread as scorn for that. I think the point was that data suggests that many people who play on deity do re-roll. I know that I do it a lot and I don't play above Prince. (This also means my experience might not be representative and take my opinion with a grain of salt.)

I've played since Civ 1 and have never started a game on deity or similar difficulties, except maybe to see what it's like to get overrun by someone with that sort of head start.

I used to see myself as almost exclusively a builder, but one thing that has changed for me is that I am much more willing to go to war early than I used to be. I think that's a credit to the devs for continuing to try and encourage people to play/role-play or create a story, because I think that has resulted in more choices and more situations where I stop and think "maybe I don't have to restart" to get the sort of space I wanted and spend most of my time building.

But to figure out what the average player is like we can only rely on what data is available, and even that data is far from complete.

For example, if 5.3% completed the game on Deity (as oSiyeza pointed out from Steam), there are still questions like whether that number is similar among other players, how many players cheesed it just for the achievement? and so on.
But one thing that data lets us say with near certainty is that Deity is not easy for the average player. For new players there are factors that can change that, but unless you have a picture of any given new player, you can't assume they'll be able to handle any given difficulty better than the average population.

All that said, if someone comes here and says "all my friends say it's easy and I know Civ has bad AI" I'm leaning towards they might not enjoy it if they're anything like the friends that said this.

 

[Vizurok]

What are the chinese players doing that other people aren't doing?

Finding newer and newer exploit(ish thing)s and paying meticulous attention to every single micromanagable resource in every turn. Anyone can theoretically do that, but understandably, very few do.

 

[Casworon]

This is why 90% of people who complain about how civ is too easy are sort of full of it because they restart if they don't get ideal conditions. That doesn't mean they're wrong to complain about difficulty but it also doesn't mean they actually know from their own experience because even if the AI was bumped up they'd still just restart until the AI made mistakes.

I honestly for the life of me have no idea where this argument comes from but it's come up time and time again. You can beat deity without re-rolling and without save scumming. I would like to separate this point and attack it directly

Yes a worse start makes it harder than a good start, but for the life of me i don't understand how people are having such a hard time. I can only conclude people aren't playing through til the end. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread the AI starts to fall on it's face from the mid game on wards and isn't that great at going for it's victory conditions. The AI's bonuses are mostly front loaded and once you get into a good position you can overtake them.

A tl.dr version is simple. Aim for 10 cities, build walls in your cities (at which point AI invasions have extreme difficulty in taking your cities), spam whatever district is associated with your chosen victory condition (if it's science victory spam science districts etc etc). Follow this as a general game-plan and even though you might lose the first few games eventually you will get the hang of it and start having consistent victories on deity without any save scumming or re-rolling required.

That would be the advice i give to anyone wanting to play deity, because from my point of view, that's simply all you need to do. Maybe i'm just seriously out of touch because there must be more too it that i'm not thinking about

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Not easy to find players who play on youtube who constantly win pre-200.
Many of them play Small Maps with 5 AI and still play long drawn out games.
They love to Wonder Build.

Gamer Grampz is probably one of the few YouTube Civ VI players that wins pre-200.
He seems to play mostly on Standard Maps against 7 AI.
He seems to add in New and Wet options as most people do on YouTube.
He likes to watch the Chinese Players and learn from them.
Not Elite but better than most other Civ VI Youtubers.
At least he plays Standard Sized Maps.
He edits his videos which seems to be all the rage these days.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaGxTImj_nhq-EZ7VAhaukA/featured

GG is just a cool guy imho, and while I have some issues with his content the man is honest, explains well, and takes the game seriously, but not himself. He is the only Civ 6 YouTuber I watch. In his sub 200 series he showed me a lot of stuff I didn't know, like the Neighborhood flip.

There are two types of civ players in my experience. There are those who play civ as a strategy game and those who play it as a simulation.

In German we have a saying: Zwei dumme, eine Idee (two stupids, one idea!)

If people want Civ 6 to be a Sim-City clone where you do not have actual opponents, that is totally fine and understandable. That's your preference and I respect it. However, that is not a predecessor to Civ 4, or even Civ 5, it's just a completely different game. If Civ goes into that general direction, too bad for me, but great for the people who want that.

Games in general are often centered around one party winning and another losing. If you take away the players chance to meaningfully lose, it's hardly a game anymore. It's a simulation. Again, simulations aren't bad, and if most people want Civ to be a simulation, then that's what it'll be. But that doesn't weaken my critique of Civ as a game. It's hardly a game now, because games imply to some degree competition, challenge, winning and losing.

In this case I think we are long lost brothers, with the same good idea!

If you actually play the game through no matter how badly you get screwed by the start up or your own decision making, you can have a lot of fun probably around Emperor level even as a player who doesn't care much for min-maxing. For example I just had my first game in forever get totally screwed by an awful start position and then failing to get a religion after investing a ton in it (I pretty much never do that so was kind of flailing about trying to get it right). I ended up very far behind because of it. Winning at the end of that was a lot more satisfying, and a lot closer, and required a lot more effort, then those who just restart until they get a perfect setup and reload every time they make a bad decision.

If you posted the start and made a thread I am sure a lot of people would play it as well. People are always looking for difficult starts, actually.

 

[oSiyeza]

I honestly for the life of me have no idea where this argument comes from but it's come up time and time again. You can beat deity without re-rolling and without save scumming.

Yes a worse start makes it harder than a good start, but for the life of me i don't understand how people are having such a hard time with it. Are people even trying? and if they are trying are they even playing through til the end? As mentioned elsewhere in this thread the AI starts to fall on it's face from the mid game on wards and isn't that great at going for it's victory conditions.

A tl.dr version is simple. Aim for 10 cities, build walls in your cities (at which point AI invasions have extreme difficulty in taking your cities), spam whatever district is associated with your chosen victory condition (if it's science victory spam science districts etc etc)

That would be the advice i give to anyone wanting to play deity, because from my point of view, that's simply all you need to do. Maybe i'm just seriously out of touch because there must be more too it that i'm not thinking about

Yes i am frustrated because i'm starting to feel attacked here. People are stereotyping deity players as some kind of dishonest exploit abusers and i have no clue where this comes from

Probably you got the wrong impression here. I don’t think there is such a thing as deity players as a group.

Nobody disagrees in that it is possible winning at deity without cheap tactics. And in that many very good players don’t do this.

The point is deity players are no better than other players. Winning on deity requires effort (imho much more than what your description suggests). And many people prefer to take shortcuts and avoid to put that effort.

I don’t think anyone is naming any particular person, and much less thinking that there are not honest players. It is also very difficult to have proper numbers, as we cannot know how many people win on deity with or without these tactics.

We were using YouTube to point that many of the popular youtubers that play on deity use them. And we know there are many popular videos out there with thousands of views that are “how to win easily at deity with this exploit” kind of videos.

You may think there is no reason to assume people cheats. I am a professor at the university and my experience tells me that many people cheats. I dare to say, most people will cheat if they know there will be no consequences, even for trivial stupid things. You would actually be surprised on how frequently people cheats or people lies on exams, or how frequently people fakes videogame scores.

I think deity Civ players are like any other people. I know there are many good players that do not use cheap tactics. And also that many other players do. And there is actually nothing wrong on using them. But is wrong if you then go to tell new players, "this game is stupidly easy and anyone can win at deity with cero training", because it is false.

The topic started by some of us, me included me, not understanding how anyone could honestly recommend deity to a newcomer. And one of the possible reasons is that some of the people that does this, has not a realistic perception of the difficulty of the game because they use these tactics to make the game easier. Others may just be so good at the game that cannot see it from a newcomer perspective. But I will put all my money in saying that there are more people in the first group than in the second.

 

[Vizurok]

I really feel like that playing (and winning) on Deity is nothing but a conscious decision. Beating Deity does not require any real skill at all as you do not need to anything but follow a set of very simple guidelines. Deviating from basic rules, playing horrible starts and going for speed runs are much different - this is where skills and knowledge take the wheel - but any player who can follow instructions can consistently win on Deity without any real effort and without any exploits.

The recipe for winning a T250-300 peaceful Science Victory is roughly as follows:
0. Pick a good science civ (Korea, Maya for example)
1. Get a decent start (I know that rerolling is frowned upon, but now we are talking about the hardest difficulty of the game. Making sure that you get a decent-ish start (a lux, one or two 2p2f tiles) should not be considered a capital sin - of course, if you get more experience, you will never need to reroll at all.
2. Scout - Settler - Warrior - Builder - Settler and buy a Monument.
3. Plant Pingala in your capital, and move around Magnus around your cities and build all available Science buildings using the boosted chops.
4. Pay some minimal attention to district placement (e.g. place the Campi in the mountains)
5. Immediately send delegations to the AIs and befriend them as soon as possible. Always renew friendships and go for Alliances when available.
6. Build Ancestral Hall, and settle 8-10 cities by T100. If you are lagging behind on Settler production, chop them with Magnus. Settlement locations should be based on the availability of at least a few choppable resources.
7. Build a Campus with all Science buildings and a CH / Harbor with tier 1 building in all of your cities.
8. Send trade routes to good gold yields, and use the trade route bonus cards.
9. Sell everything to the AI (favor, extra luxuries, strategic resources, alliances.
10. Pseudo-beeline Rocketry and after that research everything. Pay attention to Eurekas and switch out of techs that can realistically be boosted.
11. Aim for Political Philosophy, Feudalism, Exploration and Suffrage, use Classical Republic, Merchant Republic and Democracy. Use Science and Commerce boosting cards.
12. Specialize spies on siphoning funds and keep them occupied in enemy capitals.
13. Your gold should be spent on purchasing buildings but you should save at least 7200 gold for a Spaceport purchase.
14. Develop a Spaceport city that has 10-15 pop, 3-4 mines and an IZ (this is usually the capital, but it's even better if you can develop a second city). From the middle game, send all traders from this city. Use Reina to buy a Spaceport, focus on production and complete all space projects.
15. Build Royal Society in the Government Plaza, and use a worker every turn for speeding up the projects. Boom, you are done.
+1. You shouldn't really care for military. Build a few units for defensive purposes in the ancient era, upgrade them for the Eurekas but your defense should rely on your Alliances, not on your units.

I believe that this makeshift rundown can be followed by everyone who has a basic understanding of the game systems - if you have played more than 100 hours, than you should possess the skills for following these instructions. And now I get to my original point: while none of these items are set in stone, going for a Deity victory (at least at the very first tries) certainly limits the players choices and possible actions and requires them to play methodically (do chores). Personally, I think that a fair amount of players are simply not looking for this gameplay experience and therefore do not advance up to the highest difficulties - but they certainly could, if they would want to put in the effort. (I would gladly assist anyone lurking in this thread if they would want to try a Deity win.) Obviously, each of us find different things fun - for some people the fun can be found on King, for others, maybe not on Deity.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I dare to say, most people will cheat if they know there will be no consequences, even for trivial stupid things

Actually, empirical evidence suggests otherwise. A fair amount of people do, however, cheat, even if it is for trivial reasons.

Probably you got the wrong impression here. I don’t think there is such a thing as deity players as a group.

I do think so, actually. There is definitely a group of people who exclusively play on Deity, even on this very forum.

I really feel like that playing (and winning) on Deity is nothing but a conscious decision. Beating Deity does not require any real skill at all as you do not need to anything but follow a set of very simple guidelines. Deviating from basic rules, playing horrible starts and going for speed runs are much different - this is where skills and knowledge take the wheel - but any player who can follow instructions can consistently win on Deity without any real effort and without any exploits.

Exactly. It's like following a cooking recipe with no mechanical skill involved.

Again, Civ is not Dark Souls. There is zero mechanical skill, no reaction time, APM, no nothing. All you need to do is follow a popular strategy and survive the first 50 turns and the game is over.