Do strategies for standard difficulty work for harder difficulties?

[norman1994civ5]

I have been playing civ gods and kings on prince difficulty. you can check out my lets play of it below. But anyways, I am destroying right now with my strategy that I am using. So my question is, will that same strategy work for difficulties like diety? tell me what strategies you think work for how difficulties below. thanks!


Link to video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itNk9rGPv6o&list=UUcuRp-R52g-uaD80h0Caitw&index=1&feature=plcp

 

[RedRover57]

I haven't watched your Let's Play yet, but in general you must be very focused in terms of strategy on higher difficulties. Particularly on Emperor and above there is little room for error or unfocused play. "Passive" play (like automating scouts/workers and not micromanaging citizens) is probably out of the question on high difficulties (it usually was pre- but even more so post-patch).

That being said I believe that tried-and-true strategies (like the 4-city Tradition start) will work at all difficulty levels.

 

[RedRover57]

I watched the first 3 videos in the series and this is an excellent example of how you should tailor your strategy to the map. In this case you are very isolated and a 3-city culture victory would be a good option. I would have tried to place city 2 very quickly down by the wine/incense to the SE (rush buy a settler after selling off wine to the AI). If quick enough you maybe could snipe the faith natural wonder from the CS (buying tiles if necessary to get it). The third city would go on the SW coast (more wine). In addition I would have tried to rush Stonehenge to get your faith/turn up quickly.

Obvious pantheon choices would be either Desert Folklore (+1 faith per desert tile) or the one that gives +1 culture for wine/incense (a no-brainer probably). Also, I would have beelined for Petra, which would be absolutely huge in your capital. Then just grow, grow, grow in pop and focus on all of the culture buildings, work artist specialists, produce as many Great Artists as possible for landmarks and Golden Ages. Monasteries and Cathedrals would both be must takes for beliefs.

SP trees would be Tradition, Liberty, Piety, Freedom and either Patronage or Commerce. I probably would open Tradition then go down Liberty to Representation, then full Piety and Freedom (when it opens). I would wait on Legalism to get free Opera Houses or Museums (although this would slow growth to wait for Tradition completion, which may not be the beat idea on this map since no rivers, etc.).

 

[norman1994civ5]

I watched the first 3 videos in the series and this is an excellent example of how you should tailor your strategy to the map.

thanks for the tips mate. If you watch like the fourth or fith episode you will see that I had to restart the lets play because I accidentally deleted the game. But this ended up being ok because I started out a lot better.

 

[tommynt]

you play fast and advance slowly ....

try to expand to more cities way faster and keep them growing and do maybe some thinking and micromanaging between turns.
Also u miss out VERY much stuff like building an army of cheap units to upgrade them later or scouting (like half map unscouted in turn 200 - wtf) or, selling lux/resources, or ..........

also it isnt like a real strategy is making difference in playing civ - mainly its about playing good or bad - best plan doesnt help if u r inactive and press next turn fast

 

[Priah77]

A few different things happening on higher difficulties:

AI will expand rapidly and everywhere.
AI will have much larger armies (on deity you will almost never have an army stronger than others, at least early to mid game).
AI techs faster.
AI will have more gold (largely an advantage to you.)
AI will build wonders faster.

What this means:

Relying on building wonders is pointless and can really screw you over. On deity its pretty much impossible to get the great library. The only early wonder you can reliably build 95% of the time is the Oracle.

Warmongering can be both more and less effective. Problematically, your enemies will have huge freaking armies that are highly developed to deal with. On the other hand, they will have a ton of cites that will be relatively well developed, plenty of pillaging, wonders for the taking and probably more settled great people. They will also give you potentially game winning peace deals... invading the right person can literally get you upwards of 4k gold in some situations if you overrun them fast enough.

Liberty as a whole and rapid expansion is far less viable than having a tight tall early empire. The AI will expand everywhere and the AI will invade you if you expand in their area.

The AI will have a ton of gold... this means that you can pretty much rely on any extra luxury you get your hands on to reliably give you +240 gold every 30 turns. The AI will almost always have the gold to pay.

Also, on higher levels, as a result of being outgunned and outmanned most of the time, it is very difficult to demand tribute from CS's. This can be extremely annoying. I know when I played a game of the month game at prince level, I fell in love with demanding tribute from my allied cs's all the time. Not being able to win ALL of the quests also plays a factor in this.

Religion - will rarely play a big factor in your games at higher difficulty. Unless I play a religion bonus civ or have a wonder nearby, it is very rare that I get to found a religion at all. Hell, last game I played I couldnt even get a pantheon, someone had enhanced a religion by turn 50.

 

[Pook]

I agree with Priah77.

Only thing I'd add is to emphasize that the challenge to keep up technologically is immense, and often overshadows just about everything else you're doing. All AI Civs start the game 4 techs ahead of you. The Great Library is typically built around turn 30. No kidding, I've had a deity game where I was 32 techs behind the leader. If I can keep within a dozen techs of the leader, I consider that a success.

How do I do that? Finish the National College by turn 85 if not earlier, build universities and stuff them with specialists, and sign research agreements. Those basics (not that easy to execute) should keep you within one age of the leader, and then you can use your military skill to make up the difference.

 

[ahawk]

Here's just a few quick comments (some of which are implicit conclusions that Priah's observations contain):

1) Egypt gets tougher to use at higher levels, disproportionately so compared to other civs. Why? Well, 20% bonus wonder construction is only useful if you are at around the same tech level of the AI's. Above Prince, the AI will tech faster and your 20% production bonus may not help, since AI's will start wonders well before you throughout the early game.

2) Theodora is in the same boat. Enemy AI's will get religions faster at higher levels, and at Immortal and Deity, there's a serious risk you may not even found a religion at all, depending on the start. So her UA isn't as good at higher levels, either.

3) At higher levels, any strategy involving CS's can be a pain. Enemy AI's will quickly replace you as allies with CS's, and for this reason, Greece and Siam struggle a bit more than other civs on harder levels.

4) A few strategies that still work, more or less, at higher levels (I play on Emperor and occasionally Immortal):
- Persian 'Forever Golden' strategy; Chichen Itza appears late enough you stand a chance of getting it, and the GA works nicely to even boost your defensive capabilities.
- Monty; culture for kills, a great UU to help defend (assuming your start bias holds true and you roll jungle), and a UB that boosts population growth all help you to catch up across the board and eventually overtake the AI by the mid-game.
- Attila; Battering Rams if you want to take a nearby city, start with an extra tech to help you catch up in techs, pastures provide extra production, and an earlier, though less efficient, version of the Keshik. Attila is surprisingly versatile, especially with pastures providing a production boost.
- Korea; UU's designed to defend and extra science via the UA is incredibly useful.