Kadazzle's Deity Victory Guide!

[Kadazzle]

As per request, here's a nice little guide to help you win your first deity victory! When I use this, I generally play as the Germans, Zulu and Aztecs, but it can be done with all civilizations! Now! Let us begin!

First off, you want to build your city. Generally, the starting location you find it in is good, but moving it 1 space closer to the water can sometimes be better, as long as it only takes up one of the settler's movement.

After you settle your capital, move both working tiles to forest regions, to get your first warrior done in 3 turns (Move one space out of capital), second warrior done in 2 turns and third warrior done in 3 turns. Move the other two warriors with the one outside of your capital and group them into an army. Put all working tiles on Food now. Moving the first warrior outside of your capital is a must, as once the army forms that unit still has movement left for that turn, making your army able to move that turn! Use your army to go across the map to find a rival civ, while clearing barbarians in your way.

Once you find the rival civ (Should always be before 2000 BC) your warriors should be veteran and possibly with Infiltration. Attack their capital from a hill, if possible. Defending their city should be either a warrior unit, or an archer unit, so it should be an easy win within 1-3 turns.

Once you have taken the capital send your warrior army off to find other civs, and take out the final barbarians. You should have 100g by now, so now you have a free settler! This city should be a production city, so try to move it close to a rival city, so your cities should form a triangle shape:

WWWWWWWWWW
X----------- X



X


(X)
WWWWWWWW

WWW - Water Borders
X - Cities
(X) - Rival City(ies)

At this point, your two capitals should be focusing on growth and science. Do not work on production tiles yet. Your immediate tech path should go as followed:

Alphabet-Writing-Pottery-Republic-Mathematics-Construction

Once you research Alphabet, build Libraries in both of your capitals (Don't switch to production tiles, just rush them with your hold). You should get a free Spy from Writing, so send him off to find a high culture civ that might have a GP. (French, Americans, Egyptians)

Once you get Libraries continue to tech forward, while building a Barracks and Defensive units in your production city. (After you research Republic, you should get Bronze Working for free because of the amount of science output you have) Switch to Republic, and work on building settlers in your two capitals, while try to get 2 archers armies in your production city. (If you have Gold, save it for now! Don't rush the Settlers!)

By the time you tech Mathematics, you should have 1 archers army, nearing two in your production city. You should have any early tech lead, and should get a free catapult. Start building defense units in your capitals, and start building catapults in your production city. One of your settlers should make a gold city, while the other should make a science city.

By the time you get Construction, you should have 3 Catapults (1 in capital from Math, 2 in Production City) Build a road from your capital- production city, you should have enough gold because you didn't rush the settlers, and put up a gold city. Form a Catapult army, and send them and an archer army into your next rivals cities! (They should only have around 2-3) Your catapult should be veteran, so it should have no problem taking out this civilization.

Generally, from this point onwards, you can choose what victory you want, and tech accordingly. I tend to go the Navigation-Monarchy-Democracy-Feudalism-Invention-University route, switching to Democracy and teching up to Combustion and Mass production, then building Leonardo's Workshop to get some tank armies out to annihilate the last civ.

This is a basic strategy that should help you win all your Deity and Emperor games. This victory lies in an early tech lead, so teching and growing hard to Mathematics is a must! Even if you don't capture an enemy capital with your warrior armies, you still should be the first to reach Mathematics if you build another science city.

I hope this helps! Any criticism, comments and questions will be wonderful to have! Thanks

 

[Hertsh]

Sounds very credible. I'll try it out next time. So far, I'm very comfortable playing emperor but haven't started playing Deity yet (it is a very next step as I'm never losing on emperor I'm just filling up all my medals on victories on all the 16 civs, just a few left). Once I have tried it a few times, I'll get back with criticism if need be.

However, my first question is whether it really works out having the two capitals undefended for such a long period of time. I have understood that on Deity you are almost always attacked by enemy forces extremely early on. They have a 40% handicap on you. True?

 

[Smirk]

I've not noticed deity AI being more aggressive than others, its just they reach the point of warring sooner due to the production bonus.

I find it safer to send out those warriors immediately to explore more otherwise you may end up stuck or missing your chance. Course you have to keep in mind its only 6 turns so don't have that first warrior go too far.
Also I've good success exploring more with my first settler, getting a fish or two in your capital is a huge bonus, keeping in mind all AI settle in place.

Also, I wouldn't build libraries in both palace cities, unless it happens to be a good science city usually they are only balanced cities (the spawner apparently looks for 2 forests/2 grassland). Unless you've moved, and if you moved to get more sea, than you may have a great gold city. Which has the side benefit of a perfect location to rush build Colossus, Trade Fair or EIC either will secure a massive lead and an easy victory.

You do want 100g, but not usually 250g until you no longer have the option to research Currency first (for the free market). So you will want to rush things, instead of the suggested libraries, I'd rush settlers, going down to 1 pop is fine as long as the city has at least 2 grasslands available, you'll be back to 3 pop in 10 turns. (The first two pop growths need a mere 10/20 food, this applies to 4 pop too as it takes only 30, but 3 grasslands aren't always available.)
So you'll have 5 cities, at least one good gold city and one science city where you'll rush a library. The rest will be producing units, one with a barracks (This may be all you ever need to build, with a good gold city you can rush whatever vet units you need thru-out the game).

 

[Smirk]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, why do you prioritize Construction? I look towards Currency or Code at that point (the former usually with a good potential gold city, the latter if there is lots and lots of room to expand into). Also I don't bother with Archers, as long as you have the production cities for catapults they are a stronger deterrent and allow you to take cities too. Once the AI get stronger attack units they will hassle catapult armies, but that's not a big concern early on.

 

[Kadazzle]

I added Construction because it gives you an early production building to help boost the production city you've built. Production cities are generally built on the mainland, with lots of hills, mountains and grassland squares. With the Workshop (Free from Construction) those hills now produce 3 production, instead of the 1. (5? 6? if you have Marble)

As for the rushing settlers instead of libraries, it would work, but not so much for this plan. This strategy revolves mainly around around an early tech lead, then all out production. If you rush the settlers instead of libraries, you lose out on the science you'd need to get to Code of Law, Construction and Mathematics first.

My tech plan was more or less a guide-line, I don't follow it tech-to-tech though. For instance, today I went Alphabet(5)-Pottery(2)-Masonry(2)-Writing(2)-Bronze Working(1) after that I forget exactly what I tech, but I believe it went... Code of Law-Mathematics-Currency(Good idea to get if you're about to hit 250g)-Construction.

You may wonder how I was getting the techs so quick and it was pretty much just because of my civilization. I played as the Zulus. Because of their Outrun bonus, and +1 Warrior movement, it was very easy to take out Barbarian cities, while reaching the Mongolian capital well before 2500bc, and I actually had 100g before 2700bc! Used my normal plan and took out the Mongolians (Warriors were Veteran, Medic and Great General). The free settler I got I made a science city near my capital as I hadn't found a rival civ yet to make my production city. Researched Alphabet, then immediatly rush Libraries in all 3 of my cities. got the other techs very quickly while I explored, and made gold. Rushed a settler in my capital and built a production city (3 hills, 1 hill, 2 grassland) outside the Chinese capital. got Construction which made that city a major production house. Started building Catapults when I captured 2 enemy settlers. After that, game was pretty much over.

 

[kingdarius]

It's _really_ easy to do this with Aztecs and Zulu, Germans not so much.
I have found it's not really important to micromanage the science and moves either. Just start spamming warriors in every direction. Attack barbarian huts immediately. Use your gold to spam more warriors. With the speed of the Zulu or quick healing Aztecs you start bringing in gold at at an incredible rate; usually triggering the free settler quickly even rushing a warrior every single turn. I usually use this settler to build a road to the 2nd or 3rd civ I find so I can quickly redeploy my armies. When you bump into a civilization, send more warriors that way so you can form an army and attack (the lead warrior will be a veteran, so the army will become one, too). Just be aggressive pushing your warriors outward, forming armies and attacking. I usually kill two civs this way before running into an entrenched archer army. When this happens I switch over to science, and get a galley to discover any left over artifacts and civs on other continents. I continue to pursue tactical operations harassing settlers and sorties until I get catapults. One of your warrior armies should get a great leader, which combined with the catapult armies and an archer army escort should be enough to polish off the last civs before 1000 AD. If you find the Greeks, better plan on leaving them until last. Hoplite armies are not to be taken lightly. Diety, beaten like a rug! They just don't make diety like they use too...

 

[MorteEterna]

I haven't read everything, however I don't think this is a deity strategy, but only a close to the average strategy that works with cheap civs, for example zulu

Then, again, about mechanincs, building libraries instead of settlers is pretty stupid IMO because you spend 2 times, while you have the same science production with these new cities (if you know mechanics, again, you won't need republic). Rushing libraries comes later on, or maybe you want to have by the year 0 only 20-30 science per turn. Then, another thing is that going for alphabet (one of the worst tech at the start) and wiriting is pretty useless, because you can get free wall (100 hammers, prevent from flipping conquered capitals perhaps), and +1 population in every city (much better than the libraries).

However, I would say this is the same strategy of hundreds of new players usin zulu, then I don't find why this should be considered better then others, and I repeat, I don't want to be arrogant, but you just are too sure about your strategies, etc..

 

[Kadazzle]

The point of this strategy, is not uber-expansion though. It is more of a cultural/tech race victory strategy, as the point of it is to establish your borders quickly, research expansion techs quickly (Alphabet-Writing-Pottery-Code of Law) and have a high population. Usually I would build settlers without code of law, but the point of this is to mainly keep the extra population for extra science and later extra culture.

Do you have a Deity strategy?

 

[MorteEterna]

The point of this strategy, is not uber-expansion though. It is more of a cultural/tech race victory strategy, as the point of it is to establish your borders quickly, research expansion techs quickly (Alphabet-Writing-Pottery-Code of Law) and have a high population. Usually I would build settlers without code of law, but the point of this is to mainly keep the extra population for extra science and later extra culture.

Do you have a Deity strategy?

Yes, obviously (if it was offensive). I will post here many strategies, these aren't for deity, these are for online games (maybe 5 times then playing deity), however, I posted these in 2k games and I have to copy and past, if you want to wait when I have time, then I will post them.