Virusmonster's optimal strategy at Deity difficulty for a huge map

[VirusMonster]

I feel so proud. Thank you Thunderfall

 

[particle77]

Yay! I was able to apply this information to winning my first Diety game lastnight (no reloading required ). I went with a Tiny map because duel maps feel trivial, but I didn't want it to drag on too long, and left Barbarians turned on. Ended up pitted against Ragnor and Mehmed. Ragnor went down easily. I captured his first 2 cities and burned the next 2. I'm not sure if this is a change in warlords or what, but Ragnor's capital, was smaller than predicted in your guide. At this point I was worried about Mehmed. His entire civilization was between me and his capital, add to that his second city was on a hill, and his capital looked like it was on a hill under the fog (turned out I was wrong when I finally got there). I decided to concentrate forces on smaller razing cities. I took out 2, then captured the budhist holy city. At this point I switched to budhism hoping to see Mehmed's capital. no luck he had adopted the religion, but hadn't spread it anywhere. Next I captured the holy city for judaism, at this point I'm getting worried because I'm holding onto mre cities than I want. I stalled at this point building up forces to take the hindu holy city which was on a hill with 50% culture defence. I managed to take it with 9 quechas, but lost several so stalled again while building forces for my march on the capital. Finally got there and he had more archers than I cared to gamble with, I razed everything to support my troops and waited for reinforcements. When I had enough troops I took the capital. Mehmed was down to 1 city now, but I had a problem. I should have razed that capital, because with all these cities at 100AD I was running a serious deficit. I started moving my city garrisons toward Mehmed's final city in the hopes of getting there in time. However my units went on strike before I had enough to attack. I started deleting units that were farthest away, but it was useless. I ended up throwing what I had at the city. killing only 1 of his defenders, and agreeing to peace. At this point I managed to massage my cities into earning money. I focus on growing my cash as much as possible(running 0% research), then start building quechas in all 7 cities. The mass of quechas arrived and swarmed Mehmed's last city. The game endeed with a score of 60k in 700AD.

I'll be trying small next, but suspect I'll need to use some diplomacy tricks to keep the opponents I'm not focused on at war.

 

[VirusMonster]

I'm not sure if this is a change in warlords or what, but Ragnor's capital, was smaller than predicted in your guide.

Hmm, I haven't tested out this tactic much on warlords. As far as 1.61, most AI cities grow size 4 at 3310BC and then you should capture them. If there is a change on date of growing size 4 on the Warlords Expansion, you would have to figure it out by playing several games. Even in some of my 1.61 games, some AI Capitals were still size 3 at 3310BC, but it was very rare.

Good job tough I suggest you download the saves from the Deity HOF winners to check out their style of play. Most of them use Incas.

 

[particle77]

thanks, I'll definetly look at some of the Diety HOF submissions when I get a chance.

I played with the start a few more times and I think the issue is that the AI is using the capital as a settler pump. the second city is actually surpassing the capital in size. Not sure if this is specific behavior for particular AIs, a change since warlords, or a response to something unusual about the AI's start.

 

[Murky]

3) Barracks first: I did not really try to pull this one off, because barracks is a huge investment with 180 hammers compared to 30 hammer quechua on marathon speed. +4 experience would not really help anyway, because quechua needs 5 experience to get both cover and city raider I.

Doesn't HC get 1/2 cost on the Barracks for being aggressive?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Huayna is not aggressive in warlords. But then since he's industrious, I do have a question:

Is it worth it to chop-rush the oracle in your capital so you can pop code of laws and whip out courthouses in your new cities, before the unhapiness kills off the starving people anyway? It's a serious one, because I do that consistantly on immortal, but never tried it on deity before. The real question is, whether the plunder gold can net me priesthood quickly enough.

 

[VirusMonster]

Huayna is not aggressive in warlords. But then since he's industrious, I do have a question:

Is it worth it to chop-rush the oracle in your capital so you can pop code of laws and whip out courthouses in your new cities, before the unhapiness kills off the starving people anyway? It's a serious one, because I do that consistantly on immortal, but never tried it on deity before. The real question is, whether the plunder gold can net me priesthood quickly enough.

Hmm, I looked up some HOF winner saves and their Inca tactics. Well, they just raze everything down, except capitals. They even raze enemy capitals to keep overall city maintenance down.

So at start capture 3-4 strong cities. Then, capture 2 of the best capitals you see. Finally, start razing all cities you capture. Also, don't play with 18 civilizations if you are going for a conquest win. Stick with the minimum allowed 10 by the HOF rules. Then, you have less civilizations to wipe out and shorter game.

As for your Oracle question, don't go for it, because you can't pull it off consistently. Changes are high some AI getst marble and beats you to Oracle :/

Wait, what I say is true for Vanilla Civ where Huayna was aggressive. In Warlords and Beyond the Sword he is industrious, so you could give it a shot, but yea again you have to search priesthood quickly enough and I am not sure delaying alphabet is a good idea.

Most HOF Deity tactics involve heavy warmongering. I would not suggest wasting time on courthouses and Oracle builds, because you will stop expanding after 5-6 cities; ie you will raze everything on your path. To raze everything on your path, you need strong army, thus concantrate on the army.

I hope this helps. Beyond the Sword looks so stylish.

 

[VirusMonster]

Hello all,

I tried the Quechua rush in BTS, but due to slavery pop rush, the AI gathers much more archers nowadays and it has become very difficult to capture cities.

My article was intended for the Vanilla version with previous patches in mind, but my understanding is that the new patch to Vanilla version also made the AI smarter against the quechua rush.

So it might be significantly harder to rush with quechuas and do not expect to capture as many cities as early as I outline in this article.

 

[VirusMonster]

Yay! I was able to apply this information to winning my first Diety game lastnight (no reloading required ). I went with a Tiny map because duel maps feel trivial, but I didn't want it to drag on too long, and left Barbarians turned on. Ended up pitted against Ragnor and Mehmed. Ragnor went down easily. I captured his first 2 cities and burned the next 2. I'm not sure if this is a change in warlords or what, but Ragnor's capital, was smaller than predicted in your guide. At this point I was worried about Mehmed. His entire civilization was between me and his capital, add to that his second city was on a hill, and his capital looked like it was on a hill under the fog (turned out I was wrong when I finally got there). I decided to concentrate forces on smaller razing cities. I took out 2, then captured the budhist holy city. At this point I switched to budhism hoping to see Mehmed's capital. no luck he had adopted the religion, but hadn't spread it anywhere. Next I captured the holy city for judaism, at this point I'm getting worried because I'm holding onto mre cities than I want. I stalled at this point building up forces to take the hindu holy city which was on a hill with 50% culture defence. I managed to take it with 9 quechas, but lost several so stalled again while building forces for my march on the capital. Finally got there and he had more archers than I cared to gamble with, I razed everything to support my troops and waited for reinforcements. When I had enough troops I took the capital. Mehmed was down to 1 city now, but I had a problem. I should have razed that capital, because with all these cities at 100AD I was running a serious deficit. I started moving my city garrisons toward Mehmed's final city in the hopes of getting there in time. However my units went on strike before I had enough to attack. I started deleting units that were farthest away, but it was useless. I ended up throwing what I had at the city. killing only 1 of his defenders, and agreeing to peace. At this point I managed to massage my cities into earning money. I focus on growing my cash as much as possible(running 0% research), then start building quechas in all 7 cities. The mass of quechas arrived and swarmed Mehmed's last city. The game endeed with a score of 60k in 700AD.

I'll be trying small next, but suspect I'll need to use some diplomacy tricks to keep the opponents I'm not focused on at war.

I just read your post, very funny game it seems =) down to last city and you could not take it on time. This kind of fun happens even more with the new 3.13 patch where the AI got a lot smarter in poprushing units.

 

[Chenneth]

Personally the strategy i've found that works on deity is the ol' quecha rush, however, my comp can't handel really large games so i cant comment on these.
Just a point consider:
Civ is a strategy game therefore a successfull strategy should be able to win it despite things such as a bad start, or bad luck. Ultimately if the strategy is any good it while be able to accomodate set backs within it.
futher points:
1. I believe that civ is suppose to be realistic therefore i dont consider winning on tiny and duel maps an acceptable victory.
2. I dont think you should turn of barbarians... it basically means that you can leave cities undefended and I also think that, as annoying as they are barbs do make it more interesting.
3. Save and reload is cheating, therefore makes the game pointless. How many times is it ok to save and reload?? once? 100? 1000? you may as well just have invincibile units. However i think its ok just to try out different styles of play. Again a good strategy should not need to rely on luck.
4. Regenerating the map is also cheating (in my view) if your going to just keep regenerating then why not just build the map yourself.
I think of it as if i was playing against other people who were novices, you give them a ahead start because your suppose to be better (admittedly deity is really challenging but its supposed to be)... they wouldnt let you reload all the time or regenerate because they would consider that cheating.
Do to other as they would do to you!!!

 

[VirusMonster]

Personally the strategy i've found that works on deity is the ol' quecha rush, however, my comp can't handel really large games so i cant comment on these.
Just a point consider:
Civ is a strategy game therefore a successfull strategy should be able to win it despite things such as a bad start, or bad luck. Ultimately if the strategy is any good it while be able to accomodate set backs within it.
futher points:
1. I believe that civ is suppose to be realistic therefore i dont consider winning on tiny and duel maps an acceptable victory.
2. I dont think you should turn of barbarians... it basically means that you can leave cities undefended and I also think that, as annoying as they are barbs do make it more interesting.
3. Save and reload is cheating, therefore makes the game pointless. How many times is it ok to save and reload?? once? 100? 1000? you may as well just have invincibile units. However i think its ok just to try out different styles of play. Again a good strategy should not need to rely on luck.
4. Regenerating the map is also cheating (in my view) if your going to just keep regenerating then why not just build the map yourself.
I think of it as if i was playing against other people who were novices, you give them a ahead start because your suppose to be better (admittedly deity is really challenging but its supposed to be)... they wouldnt let you reload all the time or regenerate because they would consider that cheating.
Do to other as they would do to you!!!

you are so pro man =) you play so fair... congrats... please show us your deity stragegy with barbarians turned on and no regenerated start...

 

[mabraham]

Hello all,

I tried the Quechua rush in BTS, but due to slavery pop rush, the AI gathers much more archers nowadays and it has become very difficult to capture cities.

My article was intended for the Vanilla version with previous patches in mind, but my understanding is that the new patch to Vanilla version also made the AI smarter against the quechua rush.

So it might be significantly harder to rush with quechuas and do not expect to capture as many cities as early as I outline in this article.

I have found this strategy much harder under BtS 3.13 on Emperor/Huge and Emperor/Large with 18 civs. No AI city looks like being at size 4, and they're much better at getting a third archer and using it well. I've taken one capital in about 2 hours of trying...

[EDIT] OK I razed the second one, because Izzy had no chance to grow with a BFC full of plains forests. Also the my-score-is-better-than-yours automatic acceptance of demands does not work under BtS 3.13 for the above games

 

[VirusMonster]

I have found this strategy much harder under BtS 3.13 on Emperor/Huge and Emperor/Large with 18 civs. No AI city looks like being at size 4, and they're much better at getting a third archer and using it well. I've taken one capital in about 2 hours of trying...

[EDIT] OK I razed the second one, because Izzy had no chance to grow with a BFC full of plains forests. Also the my-score-is-better-than-yours automatic acceptance of demands does not work under BtS 3.13 for the above games

That is what I have noticed as well, BTS AI gets more archers to defense. Once they discover BronzeWorking, they might whip down to a city size of 1 if you park warrior(quechua) on a forest/hill smells abuse to me

Kamino (479k scoring French) commented in my recent writeup that he was able to delay economic growth of enemies with a WoodsmanII Quechua, so you might want to delay capturing as many cities in BTS and just send the Quechuas to harass the AIs in the early game.

 

[arcangel7]

Thanks VM for the great write up...again. In my first Deity/Huge/Pangea attempt I scored a domination win in 1367 for 469K pts (also my 1st time with incas). I managed to get a 5 hammer start with gold hills also, and after rushing my 2 nearest opponents I had the east coast of the map to myself which made defending a hell of a lot easier at all times. After this I had Pascal and Sitting bull to take next. Pascals citys were surrounded by jungle and sitting bull had some very nice citys surrounded by flood plains and a few gold hills and mountains. getting past sitting bull took everything I had. I built a few archers and chariots to supplement the Quecheas ( I had around 10). 1st city was easy as no hill but the next one was on a hill and combined with protective trait meant it was tough to crack. Also despite no bronze being hooked up a dog soldier appeared . In the end I managed to wipe him out and I had a really nice base to win from with several decent cities, but taking Sitting Bull early was the key. Things could of been better also, I missed the race for Lib by 5 turns which I might of got had I used the scientist to pop paper/some education instead of a 2nd academy, but I was first to knight/cuir/rifle/infantry/tank which helped

I did regen my start and I did save/reload. I always do when trying something new as you can waste hours on a huge map. I guess the next level is winning without save/reload or maybe try a cultural victory which Ive never had.

 

[Xylander]

Seems the opening is still more luck dependent than you state. I tried 6 HOF games (vanilla) on huge terra maps and failed again and again. Though I managed to do as you described it, even with 6turns/Quechua - no way to win.

2 games: managed to wipe out one (french/egyptian) around 3500 BC but failed to win against the second, because of chariots/axemen. Yes, Kyrus had an axemen in 3025 BC. I'm unable to scout more than one second enemy until 3200 BC so when I realize that the chosen one is too strong it's too late and the game is lost.

2 games: too many cities on hills. Too expensive to capture without very very big luck. With only one or two Quechuas left after first wipeout in 3400 BC you are stuck - have to give up. One time I managed to kill Caesar but found the second/third enemy settling on hills.

2 games: missing luck in attacks. Even with 70% chance to win you can fail twice and are left without experienced Quechuas and upgraded Archers inside the target capital - game over.

I always regenerated the map several times and started with very nice spots. Without reloading there is only one out of ten games you can win with your opening (just guessing). Maybe that is good with deity strategies, I don't know. I've played on emperor and just start with deity games.

In short: You not only need luck with fighting - you also need luck in:
a) chosing the right enemies (you can't scout them all within the time frame given)
b) having the enemies not settling on hills (at least not the first two)

So your article should say something about which enemies not to attack (e.g. Mali with Skirmishers) and how to scout right. You suggest to attack the second enemy around 2800 BC (for HOF games). In my games I find the enemy with chariots/axemen at this time - seems to be not unusal but you do not say anything about that.

Besides that I rarely capture capitals with size 3 or even 4 because in all my games the first capital is size 2 (in 3500 BC).

It seems to me that you describe an opening that worked once or twice but failed 100 times. Is it fun to you to restart again and again? I'm neither proud after winning with save/reload nor after winning game 127 with luck after losing 126 games.

 

[lucidstorm]

I think that quechua is so far the best, I don't understand all these people whining about luck, civ iv is luck dependent to some extent, like where you start the game and with what resources, the quechua is the best option in a luck dependant game.

I tried immortal rush but they aren't half that good as quechuas, by the time you build immortal army the quechua will conquest a small empire (with zero costs and requirements for them UU), and from you have many more options than with any other civ. The Persian immortal rush really ends at the enemy building its first spearman and that can happen quickly since your rush is delayed by the necessity of connecting horses. The only positive is that immortal is the best early UU hands down, while sitting bull can decimate quechuas.

One advice is that you should avoid attacking cities on hills, like really, take workers and cities on plains, then perhaps force the AI archers to move out of their cities or think about attacking an empire without hills, frack these hills are terrible for quechuas.

Another huge problem is the slavery thing, that will make you conquest cities at 1 population and tons of archers, so you need to take them before slavery which is almost impossible (so I repeat that what you realy need is taking cities on plains and try to weaken the enemy rather than destroy him totally). So you will be doing alot of war/peace declarations, with the consequence of a ruined diplomacy in the late game, but perhaps you will have enough vassal states so frack diplomacy and wonders. Focus on war and numbers, bully small civs for money, ask for tributes, destroy AI cottages, play guerrilla war (huge map will be very hard though, expect a huge army attacking you in the late medieval game).

For now I think deity is impossible to beat without quechuas (the easiest set would be small map), amen (oh and I know it's 2016 but civ iv> all the rest

 

[Lain]

I don't think anyone has a problem with Quechuas for "luck" reasons. Rather, it is a bit embarrassing to use them and players with a will to improve (and some self-respect) voluntarily avoid relying on them to win a game, or at least to learn the game. Why not just open the worldbuilder and add yourself some tanks on turn 1? That should be a good unit to rush anyone. It's just as cheesy and it will at least save you many hours of game time. I think that would be a more sensible course of action.

That saved time you could use to actually learn the game and improve as a player. Of course Deity seems "impossible" when you waste your time cheesing the map and don't buckle down to actually learn the core concepts of the game. Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. You can win 95% of the maps deity gives you. Hell, I win about 80% right now and I am a terrible, incomplete player.

This whole "guide" is basically a crime against humanity and even if you accept the travesty of basing a "strategy" around quechuas for a second, there are many substantial mistakes written here. But to spot them one would actually have to play the game and think a bit further than "hehee, use plains hill, build 10 Quechuas and walk to your neighbor". Something you couldn't expect from the "author" of something like this. But yeah, thanks for bringing this little gem back to page 1 and to the attention of the community. I hope any new players with at least an ounce of ambition see this "guide" for what it is.

With that mindset, you might aswell play Civ VI. Or Farmville on Facebook. That is where you will end up soon anyway after you lose 20 games in a row with any leader except the Incas and get frustrated. Beating this game on higher difficulties actually requires some thought processes that go beyond "Hey guyzz, so what do you think is better? War Chariots, Immortals or Quechuass??????"

"Optimal strategy", jesus wept.

 

[Fippy]

10 years old thread necro, Lain

I quickly glimpsed over what they wrote there, and seems it was for HoF too.
That makes guides about rushing and using all that's in the game reasonable.

Poster above obviously has no experience with deity, and i think you got upset over nothing ~~

 

[Robbos]

Thankyou so much Virusmonster for my first ever win at Diety on latest Civ 4 Warlords using your first time strategy.

I have been playing for nearly 10 years at between Monarchy and Emporer. Monarchy too easy, Emporer I win a tenth of the time with random starts. I know the screen shot only shows 3 games but I loose the game files when I do a re-install. Trust me when I say Ive played over a hundred games.

This win at Diety has helped me understand the game and where I've been going wrong. All the gambits and information I've learnt over the years I've finally being able to make sense of it all and put it in an overall framework.

Knowing when to sue for peace and when to war has always been a weakness. So Cheers to you, if you still visit these fair forums.
now I feel i understand the early game enough can start having more cracks at BTS and intergrate all those late game

 

[sampsa]

Thanks for the necro. I had somehow forgotten to click like on Lain's post.