Winning on Deity

[Yashkaf]

Blackmantle, I'm not saying that adding an archer is a bad solution. I totally agree that it's an excellent measure against early rushes without demanding a lot of work from the team and with a pretty low divergence variance. However I still dream of a perfect world where the computers are smarter than me and I wouldn't have to work so hard anymore.
Still, let's get back to the main topic. The question isn't how to make deity fairer or smarter, it's how to beat it. So far we have:

* Rushing Loki and taking over a ton of cities in an AI-AI war.

* Getting the AI/barbs to kamikaze tons of units at your walls as the Sidar and getting a ton of shades.

* Bulding a whole lot of warriors, getting some of them a shocker from a few barbs, rushing your nearest neighbor. Preferably with Tasunke.

And a few general tips:

* Making friends with everybody.

* Getting trade ASAP to catch up tech-wise.

* Timing your rush with education so your economy won't collapse.

* When in doubt, build a whole lot of warriors again.

Nobody has any game stories to share?

 

[Blackmantle]

Ahh, ok i can well see that point and whould like that as well. (perhaps exept for the part of computers getting smart in the true meaning of the word at all... let alone smarter.)
Still i think Kael and Team already deliver an outstanding job about this so im not all that pessimistic in that regard.

Back on topic: Please add Playing Sheaim, getting adepts (some with combat 5, extension 1, death one) ---> killing nearby neighbors with tons of skellies ---> getting Sorcery for Spectres and kill some more AI ----> beelining Strength of Will + Pass trough the Aether (via ToD + Grimoire) ---> wiping the map via: Take city, port Eater of dreams, Summon Tier 3 with cities pop, Swarm next city, rinse, repeat, when you have done the techs / after building the Nexus (raising the AC while you can. The civics Take care of Maintenance + WW. Building Portals if opportunity presents of course. Perhaps via orc-slaves from the barbs) to the list.

That works rather solidly in many games as well (provided its played well and you don't get totally gimped at start.) without the limitations of warrior-rushing.
Might have been lost on above very long post but it fits the topic i reckon.

From a testgame of 0.31 i have experienced that skellies / spectres are enough to trash even up to early tier 3 units (Rangers and Religious Tier 2.).




Here is another one which works under certain circumstances (most of the world has to be good / neutral alignment you and other AI can make that happen via religion...), i did so during a regular sidar creation.py game (ecofarm challenge) but might work for any civ if you are determined enough:

Make friends with neighbors and cut off part of the map for you if possible (no open borders if possible while still remaining friendly. Only works on some maps).
Found or join Overcouncil and get as many as possible to join (via gifting / trading away honor).
Get Worldwide liberty passed (after that its no problem to lose majority. So let any AI reign. its not of importance).
Found CoE or trade for deception + spread it.
Convert CoE (no religious tensions +4 or +6? with anyone thanks to fellow councilor. That will make it downright hard for you to get anything less than friendly with anyone even if you try. Save perhaps via War.).
Unite World under Overcouncil and hug everybody in a fluffy dance of friendship.
Go cultural victory while everyone loves anyone (fill any demands save converting).
Do a fluffy peace dance or universal harmony for a few hundred turns (if you wan't to backstab someone go and use some CoE Recon.).
Very close to what a diplomatic victory is (and very counterthematic for FFH2. Given.).

Should someone be dumb enough to adopt Veil in that game and summon Hyborem to gate-crash the party: Watch someone summon Basium and those 2 Evil beeing squashed in one gigantic map-encompassing dogpile. (didn't happen in my game but whould have... )


If the conditions are met (at least for most nearby civs.) that works no matter how andvanced you are (and you'll even get some free techs along the line... Here is a little something for you... Rage
Can i have tech xyz once in a while...? Sure you can, here you are, have fun... )

You don't have to really care for tech race or military in those conditions (they even won't come knocking very often under those circumstances). Just make sure the AI doesn't win another type of victory. (going for shadows / investigating suspective civs/cities and watching the victory-screen closely is very advisable.
And a small war taking a city close to completition of tower or altar is no problem and is fast ended afterwards by the council + your units are not ejected on declaration thanks to CoE religious perk and they will still be friendly afterwards.
Sooooo CoE )

Edit: Oh, and if possible establish the eyes and ears network in such a game. Its invaluable under those conditions. Then Culture Slider 100% is nothing of a problem anymore while still getting very solid tech.

Thats one strategy which should set FFH2 high-level play completely apart from vanilla in that it should be undoable there.

Another advantage whould be that in those circumstances an early rush is not a necessity.

 

[uberfish]

Actually my first deity win on 0.33 was with Tebryn and Sheaim mass summoning. So long as you don't get overrun early by an axe rush or something, which is again somewhat luck based and annoying, 10 or so Arcane/Summoner mages can crack anything you are likely to see at the point in the game you get them (my strat is 1 air node to give a few mages maelstrom, the rest death for spectre affinity and free promos) By the time significant numbers of tier 4 units appear you have high affinity wraiths.

The scary thing? You don't even need ritualists, veil, wonders, AC or any other offensive units than mages. I ran FoL all game for diplomatic reasons.

 

[slowcar]

No issues with assassins? on bigger maps they tend to annoy my mages a lot, later on.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Eh, Stoneskin does wonders for keeping your mages safe, though it costs a few promos. Add in Combat promos for Empowering the spectres and wraiths, and you should be just fine.

 

[Blackmantle]

+ Spectres can move 4 (with Extension 2) and can pillage (getting tons of money and razing roads to prevent them from swarming your mages) + summons stick around littering the landscape and Maelstorm does hurt anything walking nearby (should work worse, now that it harms your own troops.).
Not all that easy for AI to reliably get to your mages. When they try to attack Spectres or Wraiths they often run away in fear (also reliably helps against huge Enemy stacks...). A few Spectres can scare away even an deity stack of doom. If he adds catapults to the mix it might cause a few problems but fear also works offensively so after a few attacks with your death summons the catapults / other non-livings are exposed and redy for demolition.

Thats why its a rather foolproof strategy. A human player might get around this with assasins (but its still very hard since he has a real easy supply of fully replenishable fooder. And you cant surpass a wall of 8 Units around a tile of mages if he really wants to setup such one. Let alone without courageing your Assasins first. Lest them be scared and run away instead of attacking.).

If you also add Stoneskin to the mix it gets really hard for anything below shadows or other high-tier recons with marksman (or the archery unit with that name) to even kill your mages.
Str 4 + 2 +3firstStrikes +100% packs quite a punch.

 

[uberfish]

Plus you can cover the mages with low level adepts (which also have skeleton summoning duty) to minimize your loss to assassins

 

[Blackmantle]

Are you sure? Aren't mages picked over adepts by marksman-units? (higher channeling means lower chance to defend means higer chance to be targeted by Marksmen...)

 

[uberfish]

I'm not that sure that adept stacking still works actually, because I don't have much trouble with AI assassins to be honest. I find that the AI doesn't build many assassins and that they tend to go after workers, stray summons, that sort of thing.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

I usually just bring along a pile of slaves if possible. Cheap and easily replaceable with Undercouncil

 

[Yashkaf]

Make friends with neighbors and cut off part of the map for you if possible (no open borders if possible while still remaining friendly. Only works on some maps).
Found or join Overcouncil and get as many as possible to join (via gifting / trading away honor).
Get Worldwide liberty passed (after that its no problem to lose majority. So let any AI reign. its not of importance).
Found CoE or trade for deception + spread it.
Convert CoE (no religious tensions +4 or +6? with anyone thanks to fellow councilor. That will make it downright hard for you to get anything less than friendly with anyone even if you try. Save perhaps via War.).
Unite World under Overcouncil and hug everybody in a fluffy dance of friendship.
Go cultural victory while everyone loves anyone (fill any demands save converting).
Do a fluffy peace dance or universal harmony for a few hundred turns (if you wan't to backstab someone go and use some CoE Recon.).
Very close to what a diplomatic victory is (and very counterthematic for FFH2.)

Does it work the evil way around? I've started a game with the Elohim on immortal (lazy, lazy) to try out the tolerant trait and do some dimplomacy. I started beating Charadon with a rush of warriors which he was kind enough to upgrade for me (kind of like the war in the Caucasus with myself being Putin and Charadon Saakashvili). It turned out I can't build training yards in his cities so I started stockpiling beastmen of mass destruction just in case.

Around turn 150 Tebryn united half the continent under the Veil, including Capria and Garrym. I rushed all my beastmen at a nearby Sidar city with the Veil so I could convert, and eventually took him out. Right now there are 10 evil civs with the veil and the undercouncil. If I can survive Hyborem at my borders (the bastard attacked me despite being friendly +11) I'll have a very similar situation to what you described. What should I do under the undercouncil to get friendly with everyone?

 

[Blackmantle]

It could but it should be much harder.

Overcouncil + CoE gives a much larger bonus (+6 i belive as opposed to +2 via Undercouncil) and is completely independent of religion + you can backstab anyone coming near a builder victory with virtual impunity (You even have a few Wars free per AI that way before you have to fear any kind of retaliation.).

Surely CoE + Undercouncil works as well. But not to such a big margin (1-2 Wars less before losing friendly status.).

Clearly CoEs greatest asset is just that: Unmatched diplomatic and backstabbing options.


You also have the mentioned problems that some evil civs don't care for your state of relations and will atack no matter if friendly or not... Don't know if this is true for any neutral or good civs.


The trick is not that it can't work out differently at all (even within big religious Blocks). Its just that its by far more reliable. Good enough to be planned on rather early in the game as apposed to beeing a forced adjustment.

+ Veil is just one Religion for spawning a certain evil Block. And internal strife from different religions is set to happen (and in addition is much more likely in the undercouncil than the overcouncil due to smaller diplomatic boost.).

The Overcouncil + CoE works for up to 6 Religions around, with you at the heart of the diplomatic web...


What you can do in the Undercouncil to be friends with anyone? Just the same.

But if you are non-CoE (which usually is the much more important part than the council in question...) you have to actively indulge in them getting the same Religion as you do and without changing. And use Inquisition liberally in such a case.
Another disadvantage is that to my knowledge forced open Borders is an undercouncil-resolotion and with Overcouncil + CoE you can keep your borders closed to AI nearby... Allowing you to cut off part of the map for your own development...



Also most importantly: Undercouncil doesn't feature early acess to forced liberty (which features unlimited bards + a whopping 100% culture boost). Thus barring the possibility to win cultural victory more or less easily.

Best works to establish with Elhoim though for the diplomatic part (the victory is another matter though...). Since you can backstab + use Sanctuary for really mean backstabbing which AI can't even oppose and force AI into peace with corlindale (should the council not step in for you) + resurect him (Life 3 is rather easy to get for Elhoim thanks to devouts.) for more backstabbing. (+ he offers trust rather early which gives another serious boost in Relations if you need it... )

 

[Yashkaf]

Thanks a lot for the detailed rundown, Blackmantle, unless you were using the time to plant CoE viruses on my PC while I have a friendly attitude. The part that I like about it most of all is that even the Elohim who were considered the most boring civ in the game are immensely cool and unique if you put some thought into playing with them.

P.S.
I have to try again, Hybo just overran my ass. Yes, I was killed by a bunch of corpses. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

P.P.S.
I've noticed your location is Berlin, Europe. A jab at the geographic erudition of our American brethren?

 

[uberfish]

It seems the AI has slowed down a little in 0.33 (the most likely cause being agrarianism being moved to calendar which the AI doesn't get as a free tech)

This makes "fair" strategies more viable again at deity.

 

[Blackmantle]

@ Yashkaf: Well you should have tried to reach devouts and upgrade them to some Priests with Life 2. Destroy Undead whould have helped for sure... (doesn't it also work against Demons?)

No its not a jab at anyone. Just a description of my location (EU whould have been another possibility. But not everyone might know...).

 

[Yashkaf]

Preists? Yeah, I was a bit behind in the tech tree. Anyway, I restarted and got a start between Amelanchier and Falamar. I'm going extreme peacemonger, and strangely, it works. I've built my third city on turn 130, but I'm still 2nd/19 in gold per turn. My warriors are defending, my hunter is converting elephants and bears, and I'm running 100% science because of almost 0 maintenace. It's really refreshing not to depend on finicky warrior combat odds for survival. I'll keep you posted how it works, I want to try either the overcouncil friendly game or a non stop rolling world war with UUs in every new city. Did I mention the Elohim are suddenly fun?

 

[skydragoon5]

My computer seems to freeze up with 7 AI's on a small map. What kind of specs you running??

 

[tharg]

Just like in Vanilla hand out one or two archers to AI as part of their starting package at Deity level.

Tried Deity in a desperate attempt to get the AI to survive the barbarian onslaught (Marathon, Huge land map). Did not make that much difference, giving the AI an extra archer on deity should make a difference here.

 

[Blackmantle]

That's down to Marathon. Marathon speed seriously gimps the AI. Also makes the game far to long for me (and i do like big and long games. Whouldn't play on small maps above epic. Perhaps sometimes at medium ones even.). It compares to an AI about 2 levels lower than on normal (the new additions might have evened that out a bit! but it still should be very significant...)

Try Epic. Still offers much time (since FFH2 is geared toward a much slower advancement of units than vanilla anyways.) to play and the AI can cope, somewhat (still about one difficulty lower than normal).

The mod isn't and hardly can be balanced for marathon. Epic/normal/quick work out more or less fine in my experience. Quick does penalize the player a bit. So if you are out for a challenge try quick and want the AI coping better (unless you utterly dislike rushfests like i do...).

The Barbs are harder in slower Gamespeeds. Just like in Vanilla...


The new free XP per handicap honestly is much better than a bonus starting archer (no surprise here. The team has a history of coming up with better solutions than even the community suggests...). A Warrior with Combat 1 and Geruillia 1 (or Combat 2 or the likes) is about as good as an Archer would be and it counts for all their units so it should work out fine on immortal / deity... Especially if the AI bothers to take the fight to you... It even keeps some interest up to early lategame now at the highest difficulties (provided you play normal or quick.) which is a big plus.

 

[slowcar]

i agree here. got some real challenge from some deity games. good thing is that no-ai-level-reqs finally made it into the main mod, ai-no-building-reqs got very evil lately.
without the initial rush deity got a lot harder, one can still take a civ out early but you need some significant numbers first. especially hill cities with guerilla are a pain.