ShadedSkies
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2014
- Messages
- 89
I exclusively play Deity pangaea, with a random civ and no save scumming. I'll impart you with some of the wisdom I've attained.
1. If you manage to go wide and not die then you basically win. Having a large amount of beefy cities lets you pursue the victory of your choice pretty much uncontested, since the AI isn't quite smart enough to manage their own empires optimally. Early expansion is difficult but absolutely vital on higher difficulties, even if it means stepping on some toes.
2. When you get to Skirmishers the AI should no longer pose a threat. If you need an army ASAP, like "Montezuma breathing down your neck ASAP", try to settle on top of some horses so you can instantly buy chariot archers and the AI won't be able to pillage the tile. It's cheap to upgrade to skirmishers, and they solo barbarian camps with ease too, plus they arrive at the same tech as catapult, so once you beat back the enemy's army taking a few cities shouldn't be a problem. Sadly most cities you get at this point in the game will be really awful, so unless you went Authority it's probably better to just stay on the defensive and settle your own lands. If you do grab a good city you can annex it and then starve the population down to maybe 2 pop, so you only get 2 unhappiness but the buildings all contribute their yields to your empire. Puppets are for Persia.
3. Personally I like to connect luxuries as early as possible, since you get better tiles to work and at least one or two AIs pay well for them. Each tech route has its own benefits; Trapping and coastal resources mean you can grab archers instead of warriors. Plantations let you start with Pottery so you can grab any early natural wonders you might stumble upon, and gets you closer to the all-important Skirmishers. Mines give you production to crap out Settlers faster. Quarries are little iffy, but having stones or jade can really boost your production with a stone works and free science from lapis is just great. Amber doesn't really need to be improved to shine so you can wait with those. Forest-Plantations are awful. Absolutely terrible. If you get nothing but those you might want to consider restarting.
4. Make sure you found a religion. It's not hard and the rewards are invaluable. Expand and then get a Monument-Shrine in your cities and pick a good pantheon. If you have good faith generation then you can go with Festival and buy luxuries from the AI to get a truly absurd amount of gold and culture very early in the game. But why risk it? Aim for the faith.
5. The best snowball strat I've found is to rush over to the Oracle and then finish it after researching Education. Since the Oracle gives bonuses based on era this gives you 1,500 culture and science on epic speed, which is probably 1.5 policies and 5-6 free technologies. Then you just build Oxford University for a free great scientist and you're probably #1 in the rankings by a fair bit. This will piss off the AI something fierce so make sure you can defend yourself. You can't really dabble in the lower part of the tree for this to work, but if you stay the course you get it surprisingly often. Since you get Skirmishers there's little for you to do down there anyway, unless you have tons of mines and want a Forge.
6. Progress scales better than Authority unless you plan on warring a considerable amount. Authority is also much less consistant on Deity. Sometimes barbarian camps just don't spawn because the AI already broke them all. Sometimes your neighbor has a great chokepoint, or gets walls early. And at a certain point in the game, the AI starts to build Castles, making war very very taxing even if your units are a full era ahead. Authority works wonders when all the stars align and you get a bunch of barbarian camps and then an expansion-happy neighbor with lots of tasty yet poorly defended cities to destroy, but Progress always works and is always good and you don't need to break your back with constant war to optimize it. Even if it just means getting a Farm from that free worker, or a bunch of free science early on, or extra culture from that free tech you found in the ruins. Faith is the most consistent out of the Medieval trees (you did get a religion, right?) and puts some more meat on your cities, though if your civ has bonuses associated with great people, golden ages or city states it's worth checking out the other trees. Though remember that Statescraft only gets 25% yield for trade routes while Faith gets 50% yields, and Artisty only gets a tiny bit of happiness from guilds while Faith can give you two extra happiness in every city.
7. That's it for the early game. To win, you want to quickly discover coal, GRAB ALL OF IT, then rush factories and railroads and train stations and all that good stuff. With this much production you can get every building in every city for infinite yields and happiness, build an army to harass your competitors (if you still have any), get wonders, win world congress projects, build nukes and pretty much do whatever you want. Congratulations!
1. If you manage to go wide and not die then you basically win. Having a large amount of beefy cities lets you pursue the victory of your choice pretty much uncontested, since the AI isn't quite smart enough to manage their own empires optimally. Early expansion is difficult but absolutely vital on higher difficulties, even if it means stepping on some toes.
2. When you get to Skirmishers the AI should no longer pose a threat. If you need an army ASAP, like "Montezuma breathing down your neck ASAP", try to settle on top of some horses so you can instantly buy chariot archers and the AI won't be able to pillage the tile. It's cheap to upgrade to skirmishers, and they solo barbarian camps with ease too, plus they arrive at the same tech as catapult, so once you beat back the enemy's army taking a few cities shouldn't be a problem. Sadly most cities you get at this point in the game will be really awful, so unless you went Authority it's probably better to just stay on the defensive and settle your own lands. If you do grab a good city you can annex it and then starve the population down to maybe 2 pop, so you only get 2 unhappiness but the buildings all contribute their yields to your empire. Puppets are for Persia.
3. Personally I like to connect luxuries as early as possible, since you get better tiles to work and at least one or two AIs pay well for them. Each tech route has its own benefits; Trapping and coastal resources mean you can grab archers instead of warriors. Plantations let you start with Pottery so you can grab any early natural wonders you might stumble upon, and gets you closer to the all-important Skirmishers. Mines give you production to crap out Settlers faster. Quarries are little iffy, but having stones or jade can really boost your production with a stone works and free science from lapis is just great. Amber doesn't really need to be improved to shine so you can wait with those. Forest-Plantations are awful. Absolutely terrible. If you get nothing but those you might want to consider restarting.
4. Make sure you found a religion. It's not hard and the rewards are invaluable. Expand and then get a Monument-Shrine in your cities and pick a good pantheon. If you have good faith generation then you can go with Festival and buy luxuries from the AI to get a truly absurd amount of gold and culture very early in the game. But why risk it? Aim for the faith.
5. The best snowball strat I've found is to rush over to the Oracle and then finish it after researching Education. Since the Oracle gives bonuses based on era this gives you 1,500 culture and science on epic speed, which is probably 1.5 policies and 5-6 free technologies. Then you just build Oxford University for a free great scientist and you're probably #1 in the rankings by a fair bit. This will piss off the AI something fierce so make sure you can defend yourself. You can't really dabble in the lower part of the tree for this to work, but if you stay the course you get it surprisingly often. Since you get Skirmishers there's little for you to do down there anyway, unless you have tons of mines and want a Forge.
6. Progress scales better than Authority unless you plan on warring a considerable amount. Authority is also much less consistant on Deity. Sometimes barbarian camps just don't spawn because the AI already broke them all. Sometimes your neighbor has a great chokepoint, or gets walls early. And at a certain point in the game, the AI starts to build Castles, making war very very taxing even if your units are a full era ahead. Authority works wonders when all the stars align and you get a bunch of barbarian camps and then an expansion-happy neighbor with lots of tasty yet poorly defended cities to destroy, but Progress always works and is always good and you don't need to break your back with constant war to optimize it. Even if it just means getting a Farm from that free worker, or a bunch of free science early on, or extra culture from that free tech you found in the ruins. Faith is the most consistent out of the Medieval trees (you did get a religion, right?) and puts some more meat on your cities, though if your civ has bonuses associated with great people, golden ages or city states it's worth checking out the other trees. Though remember that Statescraft only gets 25% yield for trade routes while Faith gets 50% yields, and Artisty only gets a tiny bit of happiness from guilds while Faith can give you two extra happiness in every city.
7. That's it for the early game. To win, you want to quickly discover coal, GRAB ALL OF IT, then rush factories and railroads and train stations and all that good stuff. With this much production you can get every building in every city for infinite yields and happiness, build an army to harass your competitors (if you still have any), get wonders, win world congress projects, build nukes and pretty much do whatever you want. Congratulations!
