Peaceful victory?

[mighty gandhi]

Hi, I'm playing Civ 5 for fun, "just" on Immortal difficulty and I wonder how it's possible to win this game without war...
I have tried a couple time for space but without killing AI it's quite impossible for me.
They research like crazy and making all the wonders in a few turns.
Is there really another way to win the game except destroying them early and make tons of puppet cities?

 

[mbbcam]

Wait till you try Deity

You might be able to have a peaceful game if you choose the right civ (and neighbours) and play on a map that doesn't give them much scope to attack you. But certain civs are programmed to be aggressive (e.g. the Zulus, the Huns, and various others). And it is quite common for civs to get aggressive at the time they get their Unique Unit (if they have one) because it gives them a military advantage. One way to stay peaceful is to bribe civs to attack each other, and keep your military at a level that makes them reluctant to attack you because you are too strong. But some aggressive civs will just attack you anyway, sooner or later. It is what they are programmed to do.

 

[Nizef]

Hi there,
your question is absolutely adequate. My answer is based on my own experience as a casual Deity player (I rarely play on any other level). My take on it, is that on Immortal and Deity you have to follow certain rules to be successful (mbbcam once compared it to chess openings, and rightly so). Since the human player starts behind by design, you have to use most of the first 100-120 turns to catch up in technology. That you will achieve for example by: 1. Capital early build order: Scout, (Monument), Scout, (Shrine), Granary and start building Settlers when your capital reaches Pop4, To make it a little easier, try to settle your capital in such a way that you have either a 3 food tile or a 2 food and 1 hammer tile to work immidiately. 2. Make sure to steal workers from the AI (prefered) and CS (secondary). Stealing two workers from the same AI early on, will cripple that specific AI significantly, even more than you can imagine. They will still offer peace e few turns later. If you want to go for a no wars policy even in this crucial initial face of the game, you can of course do it, but you need to have good production in your capital to fit 2-3 workers into your early build order. 3. Try to settle two or even three expansions by t50-t55 and have your NC ready by t80-t90. The only NW I usually try to fit into my build order at this time is the Oracle, but this is a personal preference. Try to play without any early NWs at all. 4. Develop the tech tree unevenly. I usually pick up the first four ones, but after that, I find it most efficient to only pick up techs needed for luxuries (only detours for Bronze Working and/or Masonry and maybe Construction) and beeline, first for Philosophy and directly after that for Education. You will be frustrated for the first few times when you can´t reach Education by t105-110. But try again, and be even more direct in what techs you pick up and which to leave for later. 5. Try to grow your cities as fast as possible, micromanaging which tiles to work and which not to work is absolutely essential and food has priority over anything else in the early game. This is perhaps the most important thing.

Maybe you are already decent at everything described above, and then we come to city placement. The easiest way to stay out of early wars, is of course not to settle towards the capitals of your neighbours. I sometimes restart games if I do not have enough space to settle without picking up the "they covet your lands"-modifier. Also look for mountains and other types of terrain that will make it easy to defend if you get attacked early (if you are on the recieving end of an early attack, your neighbour usually attacks around t55-t60). Try to bribe the aggressor before he attacks at all. These early pushes rarely last more than 5-8 turns, so 2-3 CBs combined with defendable terrain will be enough to defend yourself. You can also achieve the same goal by using more watery maps. However, being too isolated is usually not good. If an AI sends you an early trade route, it might generate 30-50% of your total science output in the early phase. This might be very helpful when you try to shave off turns from your "Education-target".

After the initial setup phase, it is much easier to stay out of trouble in the midgame. Usually it is enough to have a military strength that entitles you a place in the middle of the pack (places 4-6 on a standard sized map with 7 AI + you). Being rock bottom in the early phase is unavoidable, but by the midgame you should build more units. In the midgame you should also try to beeline for Scientific Theory. This is a robust way of securing that you not only catch up in Science but also overtake the AIs (filling out Rationalism helps a lot) by the Industrial era at the latest. Every now and then you will face an AI, that snowballs out of control. Usually you can still catch them in the Atomic or Information eras, but sometimes it is a lost cause. Try to challenge yourself to build the Spaceship (or reach a Cultural Victory) by t300. That will be enough to win most games on Immortal and Deity.

I hope that this will help you and that this was not too trivial for you. Enjoy your Immortal games!

 

[so_what]

Just go watch a few diety replays (make sure it is the correct version i.e bnw 279 and not an early version). You will soon find immortal too easy for you.

It is quite hard to explain everything here as difference is in all the details.

 

[mighty gandhi]

Hi there,
your question is absolutely adequate. My answer is based on my own experience as a casual Deity player (I rarely play on any other level). My take on it, is that on Immortal and Deity you have to follow certain rules to be successful (mbbcam once compared it to chess openings, and rightly so). Since the human player starts behind by design, you have to use most of the first 100-120 turns to catch up in technology. That you will achieve for example by: 1. Capital early build order: Scout, (Monument), Scout, (Shrine), Granary and start building Settlers when your capital reaches Pop4, To make it a little easier, try to settle your capital in such a way that you have either a 3 food tile or a 2 food and 1 hammer tile to work immidiately. 2. Make sure to steal workers from the AI (prefered) and CS (secondary). Stealing two workers from the same AI early on, will cripple that specific AI significantly, even more than you can imagine. They will still offer peace e few turns later. If you want to go for a no wars policy even in this crucial initial face of the game, you can of course do it, but you need to have good production in your capital to fit 2-3 workers into your early build order. 3. Try to settle two or even three expansions by t50-t55 and have your NC ready by t80-t90. The only NW I usually try to fit into my build order at this time is the Oracle, but this is a personal preference. Try to play without any early NWs at all. 4. Develop the tech tree unevenly. I usually pick up the first four ones, but after that, I find it most efficient to only pick up techs needed for luxuries (only detours for Bronze Working and/or Masonry and maybe Construction) and beeline, first for Philosophy and directly after that for Education. You will be frustrated for the first few times when you can´t reach Education by t105-110. But try again, and be even more direct in what techs you pick up and which to leave for later. 5. Try to grow your cities as fast as possible, micromanaging which tiles to work and which not to work is absolutely essential and food has priority over anything else in the early game. This is perhaps the most important thing.

Maybe you are already decent at everything described above, and then we come to city placement. The easiest way to stay out of early wars, is of course not to settle towards the capitals of your neighbours. I sometimes restart games if I do not have enough space to settle without picking up the "they covet your lands"-modifier. Also look for mountains and other types of terrain that will make it easy to defend if you get attacked early (if you are on the recieving end of an early attack, your neighbour usually attacks around t55-t60). Try to bribe the aggressor before he attacks at all. These early pushes rarely last more than 5-8 turns, so 2-3 CBs combined with defendable terrain will be enough to defend yourself. You can also achieve the same goal by using more watery maps. However, being too isolated is usually not good. If an AI sends you an early trade route, it might generate 30-50% of your total science output in the early phase. This might be very helpful when you try to shave off turns from your "Education-target".

After the initial setup phase, it is much easier to stay out of trouble in the midgame. Usually it is enough to have a military strength that entitles you a place in the middle of the pack (places 4-6 on a standard sized map with 7 AI + you). Being rock bottom in the early phase is unavoidable, but by the midgame you should build more units. In the midgame you should also try to beeline for Scientific Theory. This is a robust way of securing that you not only catch up in Science but also overtake the AIs (filling out Rationalism helps a lot) by the Industrial era at the latest. Every now and then you will face an AI, that snowballs out of control. Usually you can still catch them in the Atomic or Information eras, but sometimes it is a lost cause. Try to challenge yourself to build the Spaceship (or reach a Cultural Victory) by t300. That will be enough to win most games on Immortal and Deity.

I hope that this will help you and that this was not too trivial for you. Enjoy your Immortal games!

Thanks for the big post. As you mentioned I'm already aware of this stuff but probably there are some little details I'm playing not too good.
- Opening for me it's normally double scout, shrine, monument and granary ( monument more important? I thought getting the pantheon earlier would give me a nicer boost).
- Pantheon: I usually pick up the 10% food for my cities.
- Social policies: Normally I open with tradition for the +3 and then fill the liberty tree for expansion. I see a lot of people skipping tradition, maybe this is my error. After filling those two normally Patronage and Commerce. Others I normally don't bother with.
- Settler on pop 4, sometimes 3 or 5 depending on land and resources, but I find a lot of maps to be too bad to be played ( e.g. no extra bonus resources around or only towards AI. That means they will settle that spot earlier or you will stumble on the "steal-land modifier".
- Without luxuries different from the standard 2 in capitol to be taken, how can you expand early in 4-5 cities? I find that quite hard, I mean you can do it but not optimal.
- Stealing workers: I normaly prioritize CS, if stealing from AI at that point I go for the capital early that is doable with 3-4 archers a warrior and a spear. You are suggesting to steal a couple workers from them and make peace?
- City management: I normally don't mess too much with tiles unless I'm losing money or need to finish something very fast. This maybe an error.
- Research, as you said. Normally pottery, unlock resources, horses and iron, build library in capitol and then beeline fil, edu, astro (detour on Civil Service sometimes needed if you're low on food, maybe I should skip this?).
- Wonders: I like Mids and Oracle, for the boost and cause they're quite always doable.
- City placement: always trying for hill spot and good terrain for defense, then prioritize food and at least a couple hills for production.
Is there any bonus for fresh water in this game except extra buildings you can get on river?
- City buildings: monument, shrine, granary, library

I'll probably try to do a walkthrough of my game to eliminate some minor leaks that hampers my gameplay.
Thanks again for you answer!

 

[Nizef]

Thanks for the big post. As you mentioned I'm already aware of this stuff but probably there are some little details I'm playing not too good.
- Opening for me it's normally double scout, shrine, monument and granary ( monument more important? I thought getting the pantheon earlier would give me a nicer boost).
- Pantheon: I usually pick up the 10% food for my cities.
- Social policies: Normally I open with tradition for the +3 and then fill the liberty tree for expansion. I see a lot of people skipping tradition, maybe this is my error. After filling those two normally Patronage and Commerce. Others I normally don't bother with.
- Settler on pop 4, sometimes 3 or 5 depending on land and resources, but I find a lot of maps to be too bad to be played ( e.g. no extra bonus resources around or only towards AI. That means they will settle that spot earlier or you will stumble on the "steal-land modifier".
- Without luxuries different from the standard 2 in capitol to be taken, how can you expand early in 4-5 cities? I find that quite hard, I mean you can do it but not optimal.
- Stealing workers: I normaly prioritize CS, if stealing from AI at that point I go for the capital early that is doable with 3-4 archers a warrior and a spear. You are suggesting to steal a couple workers from them and make peace?
- City management: I normally don't mess too much with tiles unless I'm losing money or need to finish something very fast. This maybe an error.
- Research, as you said. Normally pottery, unlock resources, horses and iron, build library in capitol and then beeline fil, edu, astro (detour on Civil Service sometimes needed if you're low on food, maybe I should skip this?).
- Wonders: I like Mids and Oracle, for the boost and cause they're quite always doable.
- City placement: always trying for hill spot and good terrain for defense, then prioritize food and at least a couple hills for production.
Is there any bonus for fresh water in this game except extra buildings you can get on river?
- City buildings: monument, shrine, granary, library

I'll probably try to do a walkthrough of my game to eliminate some minor leaks that hampers my gameplay.
Thanks again for you answer!

It seems like you are doing most of the things right. Based on what you posted now, I would recommend the following changes/improvements to your play:
1. City management. Every time any of your cities grow, you assign the new citizen to a specific tile. Every time! When a city needs to shift focus, you also readress your citizens (for example from food for growth to hammers for faster production).
2. Pantheon. Try to go for a religion when your land allows you to do so. My personal favourites are Earth Mother (when you have Salt or Copper) or Religious Idols (Gold or Silver). It WILL help you in the long run. If nothing else, it usually helps with any happiness problem (or Culture/Money problems). I know that many better players ignore Religion, and you can obviously play just fine without, but it adds to the depth of the game. A strong religion can many times be converted into 3-5 GS in the late game when you start bulbing or 3-5 GMu for a cultural win. By the way, if I am not mistaken, the +10% food, only applies to excess food and thus it is quite situational when it is useful enough to be your pick.
3. Tradition or Liberty. On lower levels I usually played Liberty, but on Deity I usually go for Tradition. I don´t want to open up this issue (it seems to be like a religion for some players to prove that one is better than the other, I only think they give you different things and you need to plan ahead regardless of which you choose), but basically I must admit that Tradition is more forgiving and it gives you a more flexible build order since you get the free Monuments and free Aqueducts. That is massive in the early game when you are catching up. Challenge yourself to play 4-5 Tradition games and see how you like it.
4. Stealing workers. Read some of the postings in GotM185, where they were stealing 10 workers from the same AI! Usually I try to steal 1-3 workers early on from AIs and then make peace with them as soon as they are willing to. On top of that you can stay at war for a longer period with one specific CS and steal multiple workers if you need to. This will once again free up space in your otherwise packed build order.
5. Trade routes. We didn´t go into this matter earlier, but as trade routes get available, try to build them as soon as possible and use most of them for internal food caravans (or cargo ships). Population growth is king is this game, so you need to grow as much as your happiness allows you to.
6. Culture. We didn´t go into this either. On lower difficulties cultural buildings have low priority, since NWs will give you the culture you need. You will, most of the time, need all the Guilds and usually also at least Opera houses (+ the Hermitage). Otherwise you will have substantial problems after Ideologies on high difficulty levels. Read about my struggle in GotM175, when Austria managed over 105.000 in culture.
7. Social Policies. Make sure to play with Aestethics once in a while. It is more of a late game thing, but it is obviously the only real route to CV on high difficulties. I used to open up Patronage a lot when I played on Emperor, but nowadays I rarely touch it. If you play for a SV (and go Freedom) a couple of points in Commerce will give you a nice synergy. Heck, sometimes I even go for the much shunned Piety. Getting reformation beliefs like Jesuit Education is very, very nice!
8. Try to find postings by truly great players like Acken or vadalaz. Acken explained his game extensively in GotM160, just to give one example. Or watch videos like so what suggested.

I would say that points 1 and 5 are absolutely fundamental, while 2, 4 and 6 will improve your play broadly speaking. 3, 7 and 8 will improve your decision making, because you have a larger bank of solutions at your disposal.

Have fun and I am sure you will enjoy Deity games after a while!

 

[Sholugo]

Hi Mighty_Gandhi; I became Immortal player just 3 months ago since then I change my playing style to someone more warmonger, in one on my last plays at Emperor level I win without a single war in all the game, I played like Venice standard pace and map, archipelago, Diplomatic Victory turn 362; Shaka, Gajah Mada, Gustavus Adolphus, Wu Zetian, Ramses II, Hiawatha, and Pocatello were in the game, my policies were: Tradition (5), Patronage (5), Rationalism (5), open Exploration, and 7 tenets of Freedom, only convert 3 CS in puppets. Your neighbors always try to keep them fighting each other, if someone starts to hate you kept an army between you and him, follow his units with a bigger army when they move to your territory, if the IA see that you are stronger than he, you will be at peace, as I say that was in Emperor level, in Immortal the only kind of victory that I try is domination (the funniest one ).

 

[mighty gandhi]

Hi Mighty_Gandhi; I became Immortal player just 3 months ago since then I change my playing style to someone more warmonger, in one on my last plays at Emperor level I win without a single war in all the game, I played like Venice standard pace and map, archipelago, Diplomatic Victory turn 362; Shaka, Gajah Mada, Gustavus Adolphus, Wu Zetian, Ramses II, Hiawatha, and Pocatello were in the game, my policies were: Tradition (5), Patronage (5), Rationalism (5), open Exploration, and 7 tenets of Freedom, only convert 3 CS in puppets. Your neighbors always try to keep them fighting each other, if someone starts to hate you kept an army between you and him, follow his units with a bigger army when they move to your territory, if the IA see that you are stronger than he, you will be at peace, as I say that was in Emperor level, in Immortal the only kind of victory that I try is domination (the funniest one ).

Hi, thanks for reply.
Domination is not a big problem for me on Immortal, I have some nice and funny game. I would try to win in some other way without having to go to war. I find that very hard and trying to improve my gameplay (more research for instance)

 

[Nizef]

I would like to recommend EDGE37 to you, Mighty_Gandhi. I know it is Deity, but it will rarely be as peaceful on high difficulties as this one.

 

[mighty gandhi]

I would like to recommend EDGE37 to you, Mighty_Gandhi. I know it is Deity, but it will rarely be as peaceful on high difficulties as this one.

Can I find some posts here on the forum or video on you tube about this?

 

[Nizef]

Can I find some posts here on the forum or video on you tube about this?

You can find the file to play here on the forum in the Strategy&Tips section under Enjoyable Deity Games on page 8. Another very peaceful game is GotM160 in the Game of the month section, also that with Babylon. GotM160 was my first Culture Victory on Deity. Other peaceful games are EDGE1 and EDGE14, both with Korea.

 

[mighty gandhi]

You can find the file to play here on the forum in the Strategy&Tips section under Enjoyable Deity Games on page 8. Another very peaceful game is GotM160 in the Game of the month section, also that with Babylon. GotM160 was my first Culture Victory on Deity. Other peaceful games are EDGE1 and EDGE14, both with Korea.

Thanks a lot, I'll give it a try.

 

[phillipwyllie]

Don't take cities. When you kill all the AI's units after they have DOWed you they will give you all their stuff(don't accept cities). Immortal isn't Emperor whereby you can get away with your starting scout upgraded to an archer. I find training a few plastic infantry seems to help.