How to beat Diety?

[Onionsoilder]

I know several people on here have beat Diety before, and I'm trying my hand at it now. I've throughly trounced the Immortal AI several times before, but I can't seem to make the jump to Diety. Can anyone who has beaten it give me advice? I'm trying to win with the Illians, it seems fitting since Auric really does plan on becomming a God.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I've won at Deity several times - meaning games I actually played to the finish and not including games where I had a substantial lead but was too bored with to completely crush everyone - but, but I don't win consistently at Deity to claim mastery of it

For every win, there's three or four defeats.

IMO, probably one could maximize their chances by choosing map types where one can get a really defensible position (say an Erebus map or an Archipelago-continent or islands). Playing the Pangaea maps (again IMO), which I prefer, are more challenging as it's usual to have several enemy civs with stacks of axemen attacking very early; it's fun but it makes winning hard.

But, as a very general observation, Deity makes one really focus on making every turn count and playing to your civ's strengths while minimizing its weaknesses. One can be a lot more ambitious at the other levels, researching this or that on a whim, building early workers or settlers with minimal city guards, but I've found that the AI's insane production levels make military production much more important.

Anyhow that's just two vague tips: find a defensible position and buckle in for a bumpy ride while loading up with military units galore; plus tailor one's play to the civ you're commanding.

Then ... be prepared to have the AI shake you like a terrier shakes a rat.

 

[DarkxL0rd]

you absolutely must build military units all the time. start thinking to yourself, "can I afford to not build warriors for the 13 turns it takes to build this grainery?" the answer is always no. Also, your first city needs to be placed on a hill. that immediately gives you a 25% better chance of not losing the game. its placement needs to be touching either gold, incense, dye, or some other high cash tile. Also, "No settlers" option enabled is gonna give you some time and encourage you to have open borders with people. I know when I play with settlers and some one asks me for open borders, then first thing that comes to mind is, "your just trying to get settlers behind my lines to that small patch of land I have no use for!" and they always do!

but seriously, you gotta be military minded, and flexible to accept things you may not be used to, like RoK with elves, or skipping God-King for city States, or giving tribute so some one doesnt attack you.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Hmm...The "No Settlers" option sounds interesting... I'm assuming the AI still gets both of their starting settlers though? Still... I doubt I would do that, as I don't want to 'fake' a Deity win by putting the AI at a disadvantage with the settings.

EDIT: Spelling

 

[Deon]

I usually play deity (deity, deity, deity, blarg... deity) games with no settlers and barbarian world. Thus city positions are already pre-defined and you don't get a crazy "let-me-put-this-city-at-your-resource" harrassing by AI and quite smooth nation borders. Also it gives some use to your highly ranked warriors, because you continue to build military units and capture cities with them instead of building settlers which disappear upon the city creation, thus it's a waster of hammers.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Alright, well I genned up a new game, and landed a rather interesting start. I have a small island all to myself, but it is not completely disconnected; so far I've met two civilizations. I'm sure when the AI starts sending their workboat-scouts around, I'll meet a few more. The nice thing about the island is 1) Improved Defense and 2) I actually have room to build 2-3 extra cities before the AI can settler-spam me.

 

[Deon]

If you have a 1-tile route to your island, build a city there and all the defensive structures. You'll be unbeatable for most distant civ. However look out for Tas. He may build boats, and horsemen from boats with "Raiders" are nasty.
Edit: try not to build roads on the shores.

 

[Angrenost]

It's usually all about surviving the early and middle game, since in late game AI sucks with more spells and high level units around.

Tightly packed pangaea maps can be quite frustrating with there always being someone who wants to crush you with his axemen or horsemen, coming from whichever part of the continent, and since their power is so much higher than the player's there's no chance for peace.

Deity AI can be quite easily rushed with warrior spam, since they have multiple cities to protect while you ony need that one moderate Godking-city. They try attacking a bit, lose their troops, divide the rest between the cities and then there's nowhere enough to counter your stack.

 

[Deon]

horsemen

This. The most frustrating thing is a huge stack of retreating horsmen. They pillage your towns and are too fast to note and block.

Also the high-level units is your key to combat domination. AI seems to be too straight with attacks and don't often protect its high-level units while you should value them as your own life because they are the only way to survive free promotions on enemy units.

 

[DarkxL0rd]

I don't see "no settlers" as handicapping the AI at all. They still get their starting 2 settlers to your 1. and then everybody has to take barbarian or each others cities to expand their domain. on any difficulty, the AI gets really annoying with their city placement, and this is just a way to cut out that annoyance. in some ways it helps the AI, because some civs over expand, kill their economy, and then remain stagnant for a long time. I usually always play pangea, no settlers, barbarian world when playing deity. its an all out brawl in the beginning to take the barb cities and then settlers wouldn't matter anyways! except to annoy of course, by sitting down right in you ice covered back yard with no resources only to be an annoyance.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Huh. Well, there is no land route to my island. Of course, this means Tasunke HAD to convert to OO. Guess I have to be on the lookout for Drowns. Oh well, at least I have Copper.

Anyway, I'm a little unsure of the tech path to take at this point. I'm considering Trade so I might be able to leech some techs off of AI manipulation, but I'm not sure how well that would work on Deity. Still, I might do it anyway just to grab Deception; Nox Noctris can be very helpful against the AI. Alternatively, I could try to go for Guilds in the hope I can build eyes & Ears network before the AI. I do have a lot of commerce resources...

EDIT: I decided to go for Deception after all. Popped a GP a couple turns before, so I build NN right away. I might go for Cartography, send my Nightwatch over(revealing nationality first, of course) then spreading it around.

After getting Trade, I was pleasantly suprised to find out I was ahead of Tasunke in tech, and about tied with Decius.

 

[Deon]

Wait, Deception? Aren't you agnostic?

 

[Onionsoilder]

Wait, Deception? Aren't you agnostic?

Yes, I am. Just because I can't convert, doesn't make having a religion bad though. It still has several benefits.

 

[Deon]

I find on deity that getting techs without total synergy on deity is a late-game perspective. I'd focus on something more important. But you have your own tactics .

 

[Demus]

well, of course him being on an island will make for an easier early-game (even though he only has room for 3 cities. If it hadn't been for the island, 2 warriors per city would have gotten you rushed by now.

Just a question though: why are you building temples of the hand? the entire island is grass terrain, which is actually better than snow thanks to the river commerce bonus. You just gave yourself about 10 commerce less because of the temples.

I would invest in naval units right about now, at least fishing so you can send a work boat around to scout the coast. You've got trading, so the more AI's you run into, the better. Also, this will tell you if there's any land/islands still unsettled.

 

[loffenx]

The "No Settlers"-option has done nothing but handicapping the AI to the limit of unplayability in the games I have tried it. The AI expands (conquers barb cities) extremely slowly or not at all so the advantage they have initially is quickly overcome by my own expansion, and the challenge is alas not even close to the "normal", sadly I really like the idea, but I have never gotten it to work.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The best way to win on Deity is not to start there, but get to that level once you're already ahead. I recommend Flexible Difficulty, starting at Warlord of Noble.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

question to the deity players, isn't Aristograrian the only viable choice there? it seems to me that a cottage-based economy would be impossible to mantain with the AI constantly harassing and pillaging everything...

 

[Onionsoilder]

Just a question though: why are you building temples of the hand? the entire island is grass terrain, which is actually better than snow thanks to the river commerce bonus. You just gave yourself about 10 commerce less because of the temples.

Yeah, I didn't realize Ice didn't give the commerce boost as well until it was too late. I thought the extra culture from the temples would help push the AI's boarders off my island.

One quirk I did find: Riverside Lumbermills(On Ice) DO give a commerce bonus, even though other riverside tiles do not. I'm trying to convert my riverside forests into lumbermills for this reason, instead of chopping to build farms.

EDIT: I just got a map of the world. It seems that most of the civs are clumped on a pangaea-like continent, even though it is not a pangea map. This actually could be good news: While it makes conquest a lot more difficult, I can spread Council of Esus to practically everybody...

 

[Emptiness]

How did the westernmost 2 tiles of your island (in Decius' control) change to ice? Temple of the Hand should only affect a 2-tile radius, and those are 3 tiles from Lakis. Other tiles to the north, at a range of 3 tiles from Lakis and/or Garduk were not changed.