A Guide to Deity Space Victory using a Single City in Civ4

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A Guide to Deity Space Victory using a Single City in Civ4 (NO OCC)
Introduction
It is possible to win in Civ4 using standard settings with Deity difficulty using only a single supersized city. What follows is a result of several years of development of a strategy to Civ4, I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as I did while perfecting it. :)

This strategy involves using an extreme version of a specialist economy to have research outpacing computers on Deity level using several cities. At the same time you must manipulate the diplomatic situation in the game from the very beginning to keep the other players locked in a never ending world war with two or more cliques, to prevent them any other players getting a victory through a cultural victory or other means, or getting their economies geared towards research.

The strategy involves more or less three different stages, corresponding to the different ages from Stone Age to Space Victory. In the first stage some wonders must be built, namely the Oracle, the Pyramids and the Great Library. In the second stage a specialist economy is maximized to research into Biology as fast as possible, while in the third and last stage the city will double its size and maximize production capability to secure the space victory, while keeping everyone else embittered and locked in wars. In each stage several mandatory objectives should be reached to guarantee that you will outpace the other players, and some optional objectives can be reached, that will make the victory easier.

Playing this strategy involves a careful turn-by-turn analysis of the game situation, manual control of workers and trades for each turn, and considering which player to help and which to pit against others. Most of the game you will have the combo of Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste System and Pacifism, while working towards getting these earlier in the game. As a general guideline to reaching the objectives, don’t trade the required techs before finishing the objective. So don’t trade Electricity when building Broadway, or Education when reaching Liberalism.

Getting a Starting Position:
Pulling this strategy off on Deity requires an exceptionally good starting position. This involves resources such food resources for fast growth, happiness resources and things for a faster space victory. Position in the world and the nearby terrain is also crucial. Usually it takes some tens of random generations to get a workable position, remember that you can move a settler for a round or two at the beginning, this might be required as the generator won’t give an abnormally good starting position otherwise.

Mandatory:
Peter
Philosophical is a must for SE. Health bonus is the best second attribute. Research institute later is a nice add-on. The largest bottleneck in getting a big city early in the game is health, and the +2 health from Peter is huge. Without the bottleneck caused by health Gandhi would be the best option.

Food Resources and Flood Plains
You need at least two health increasing resources nearby to increase the health limit. You also need flood plains or oasis to secure early growth. It is important to have a food resource such as sugar to plant your settler on. This gives a +1 food, combined with other 3 producing tiles this means you will level up very fast early game. A pig in plains produces 6 food, grains next to a water source produce even more, you need at least a couple to make your city level up fast in mid game, so you can dedicate more turns to pure GP farming.

Forest and Stone
Reaching the Pyramids before the opponent is not easy on Deity. This requires that you have 2-3 workers chopping full time, with organized religion and/or mathematics and a stone or a large number of forests to chop. You will also want to save 2-4 forests for the health gain and later happiness gain from forest preserves.

Good Location
You need to be located near the ocean, best spot being close to the two or more cliques that you will play against each other later. Being too remote or in between the opponents means you will get on their chopping block.

River
River is so good it’s mandatory. +1 research per tile and +1 hammer after Levee and easy energy from Hydro Plant means that you will be severely handicapped without one.

Aluminum and/or 30 degrees for Space Elevator
Getting a space victory without both Aluminum and Space Elevator is impossible, and without one is hard. You won’t know from early game if you have these, just wish for the best and try to play the start through once to see if you have these and a change to win.

Optional:
Gold and other happiness resources
Gold is almost mandatory. It changes early game by enabling a larger city and giving a huge +8 research bonus. However, working the gold means one less scientist, after Pyramids the edge from having a gold becomes less useful. Other happiness resources are bad versions of gold, but still useful.

Marble and Copper
Copper is good for getting axemen and some spaceship parts later. Marble is good for faster Oracle, Great Library and National Epic.

Stage 1: Building Up
Now that you got a workable starting position, it’s time to start the game. In Stage 1 you should maximize reaching wonders in time that are required to maintain the tech edge over Deity opponents during Stage 2.

The build order should be 2-5 warriors while leveling up to 5-7, then 2-3 workers to build mines and chopping once you get Bronze Working. After this you should get Oracle, Library, Pyramids, 1-2 Archers, Granary, Aqueduct, Great Library, National Epic.
Tech order should be linked to this, with the typical research route to Polytheism to Writing before Oracle to get Code of Laws, Bronze Working/Agriculture, and/or Animal Husbandry for early growth, Monotheism for Organized Religion and Mathematics for Pyramid building, followed by Civil Service to build the other buildings faster. After this you should reach Literature for Great Library building, and finally Philosophy for Taoism and Pacifism, all of these for maximizing Great Scientist farming in Stage 2.

Mandatory:
The Oracle
Oracle gives you a tech advantage, and by snapping Code of Laws gives you a religion and something to trade to get Alphabet and other techs from opponents later on.

The Pyramids
To get The Pyramids after the Oracle you must outpace the opponent using a combo of stone, chops, mathematics and organized religion. Exact combo depends on your game.

The Great Library
This gives a huge bonus for GP farming in Stage 2. Plus you don’t want one of the opponents having this.

Starting Diplomatic Manipulation
You should not forget the global situation even in the beginning. Its over, if a culturally or technologically oriented computer gets a good start. Be aware how much you trade and with whom, and how much you agree to their demands. Make friends with of the religious cliques and start turning one war-oriented computer from these into "the Bully State", more on this in Stage 2.

Academy
Should be obvious, one of the early GPs should be a GS, and one of the first ones you should put into building Academy. Not necessarily the first one, as you might want +1 hammer from a settled GS when reaching Pyramids in time.

Optional:
Religious Wonder
It is strongly recommended that you put one your first Great Prophets to get a religious wonder, maybe later build the monastery. Later in the game emissaries will cost 1 turn to build, and will net you permanent benefits in 1 gold*modifiers per turn and improved diplomatic relations. You will also get +3 priests for Stage 3, where will you need more hammers.

Founding Religions
The more religions you find, the bigger your city will be later in the game due to temples and Free Religion in the end. This might also force other players to adopt your religion. You will get Confucianism from the Oracle, but getting Hinduism or Judaism will get you a faster start with a bigger city.

Worker Abduction
Thanks to other people in the forums. Works fine with this strategy. Send your first warrior to abduct a worker or two from your neighbor. After this hide your warrior with Guerrilla upgrade on a forested hill next to his capital. You will get a free worker or two, and your troops will get experience. You might get a random event truce, and should trade Alphabet before his troops attack your city, and he will accept any small tech for peace at this point. This will create a pissed off player with a large army to use on someone, and everyone else trying to keep up with the arms race. :lol: All in all a very fun trick to do on the computers. :D

Great Artist
Get Music for the Great Artist. The tech can be traded and this sidetrack will later pay off in terms of gold, research and culture bonus accumulation.

Stage 2: Great Scientist Farming
Now that you have a city around 10-13 in size, National Epic and Philosophy, you can move from reaching wonders to farming GS to reach Biology as fast as possible. There are still a couple of objectives to meet on the way. Build order at this point should be roughly 3+ Longbowmen for deterrent, Temples, Colosseum Theatre, Market, Grocer for growth, Castle, University and Observatory as soon as possible and finally National Park. Research must reach Liberalism as the first player, skipping the economy and industry-related techs to get Chemistry, Scientific Method and Biology.

Mandatory:
Liberalism
If you fail to reach Liberalism first, then something is wrong. You should use it to get Astronomy for observatory, either by trading Optics or delaying finishing Liberalism to research it first. Don’t give education away before this.

Developing Diplomatic Manipulation
Every single turn without wars becomes a threat at this point, as it is very easy for Deity opponents to catch your tech advantage. Create a "Bully State" from one of the stronger aggressive computers. Bribe him with irrelevant tech to attack players to subdue weaker players to work for him, and to attack the non-friendly cliques repeatedly to get a world war going on for Stage 3. Keeping the Bully State constantly in war will also make him overstretch and unable to sustain their economy without your tech bribes. You must also maim all of the culturally/technologically -oriented players in the friendly clique at this point, as you won’t be able to do it later in the game. Opposing culturally oriented players you can crush using the Bully State in Stage 3 when necessary.

Optional:
Great Merchant
If the other players are lagging severely, you might want to reach Economics to get the Great Merchant after Liberalism. Like with Music and the Great Artist, the bonuses will eventually pay off the sidetracking. This is not very important however.

Stage 3: The Space Race
In Stage 3 you will get National Park to remove the health cap on your city size. Your happiness cap will be reduced by temples and traded resources and colosseum plus theatre with the culture slider increasing happiness by 3. This with Biology enables you to double your city size to over 30. More than 30 (and even 40 with corporations) is possible, but as these will be just builders in the end, there is no advantage from oversizing. After maximizing size and GS production, you should gradually maximize science and hammers, and finally espionage and hammers to protect from sabotage.
Build order should be Broadway, The Eiffel Tower, Cristo Redentor, Rock and Roll, Levee, Factory, Industrial Park and Hydro Plant to increase production, then The Internet, The Space Elevator, Apollo Program, Research Institute and finally the Space Ship parts to get the Space Victory. Near the end you should start protecting more and more against espionage by building Courthouse Jail, Intelligence Agency, Security Bureau at the earliest instance, keeping a couple of specialists as spies, and finally keeping espionage slider near 100% to prevent sabotages. You should win the game by Space Victory while other players are tied in a never ending war.

Mandatory:
Broadway, Eiffel Tower, Cristo Redentor and Rock and Roll
Not getting these means you don't have the necessary tech edge anymore. These will give a wide range of bonuses, including much needed happiness bonuses, resistance to United Nations decisions with Eiffel Tower by making it more affordable to be called a villain and diplomatic bonuses from using Cristo Redentor by making it possible to always agree to a civic/religion change and then changing back. Needless to say, don't trade Physics, Electricity or Radio when you are still building these.

The Internet, The Space Elevator, Aluminum, Space Ship
Internet is a must to keep the tech edge through the final stages of the game. The Space Elevator and/or Aluminum is required. You can get Aluminum from allies, but this is unlikely and unreliable. As soon as you get to building the Internet, you should maximize hammer production and hammer-producing GPs by moving your specialists to the hammer-related occupations, changing windmills to mines, and possibly using the Workshop+Caste System+State Property combo. You should get at least 100 base production at the end of the game, with multipliers this means most SS parts will finish in 3 turns or so.

Total Diplomatic Manipulation
At this stage, you should have one of the strongest players in the game as your friend and running an overstretched empire dependent on your tech gifts for progress. Other players in that clique should be sufficiently weakened to prevent a cultural victory. Alternatively you can help them to become free again, and then bribe the Bully State to destroy a couple of their most cultural cities by handing them him the latest war tech. Managing the Bully State is the trick, if you give him too much resources he won't need you anymore, and if you give him too little he won’t be able to keep the world war going. The opposing cliques should be strong enough to keep a fruitless war evenly tied, and embittered enough that you don’t need the bribes to keep this war going.

Optional:
Food Corporation
Getting one of the food corporations is very useful, netting your city 10+ food at the end of the game through trading. However, scoring a great merchant takes luck, as planning one would take way too much resources and time. Change to Free market and your farms to workshops to turn the food bonus into a usable hammer bonus for a faster victory.

Nuclear War
Nothing slows down the tech race like a full-blown nuclear war. Trade away the preceding techs to unsuspicious computers, Google up Fission from the Internet once it shows online and then sell it to one of the warmongers with Uranium.

Conclusion
This guide described how to win in Civ 4 standard setting with Deity difficulty using a single city. The strategy obviously takes weeks or months of practice to pull of correctly, and once all the required tactics are mastered, it will still take several games to get all the components together. If you plan to try this out, start with easier difficulties to get the feel for optimizing the specialist economy, and manipulating the diplomatic situation.

Have fun trying this out. If anyone can come up with new suggestions or experiences, let me know. :)

Below is a victory picture from a recent game after years of experimentation, with Genghis Khan as the Bully State and Hannibal and Ragnar the opposing clique. :king: William was an ally close to cultural victory so he had to be liberated from Genghis only to be destroyed a couple of turns later with :nuke:. Julius was a strong ally earlier, but he had to make room for Ragnar to become a stronger opponent to keep Genghis occupied. Montezuma had his workers stolen at the beginning by a ruthless player and had to spend the rest of the game being tossed around by Genghis. Other players were colonies.

 

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There was a recent Monarch OCC space gauntlet, discussion here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=315351

Most of the strategy was similar to what you describe above, with a few adjustments for the easier monarch game (e.g. taking Bureau from Oracle, Biology or better from Lib).

I'd say Peter isn't required, you can get the national park to solve your health problems, and if you save forests for forest preserves health isn't normally that big a problem. You can also buy resources paid for by setlling prophets or making a shrine.

The best entries used Liz or Gandhi (results here: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=minor&gauntlet=162&submit=Go).

I was the only one to use Peter and finished in 24th place ;) I also played with Bismarck but was a bit slower.

The main problem in that gauntlet was stopping people winning cultural victories.
 
You put so much work into this dude, so nice, but not really all that interesting (hopefully also not a DL). It would be much easier to win a religious victory in OCC conditions, or of course diplo. Otherwise it's kinda obvious that regenning/replaying maps to get tons of resources, early wonders etc... can lead to victory. Espionage can sabotage pretty much any AI in the late game as everyone knows. I agree with Paradigm that Liz is probably a better leader as well.
 
Mandatory:
Broadway, Eiffel Tower, Cristo Redentor and Rock and Roll
Not getting these means you don't have the necessary tech edge anymore. These will give a wide range of bonuses, including much needed happiness bonuses, resistance to United Nations decisions with Eiffel Tower by making it more affordable to be called a villain and diplomatic bonuses from using Cristo Redentor by making it possible to always agree to a civic/religion change and then changing back. Needless to say, don't trade Physics, Electricity or Radio when you are still building these.

Why do you need the happiness when you could have built the Globe far earlier? More generally, it's bizarre to have an OCC challenge this detailed without a full list of national wonders.
 
The late culture wonders are quite handy to stop civs going cultural. You can also sell the resources for cash or gift for diplo bonuses. Christo Redentor is great if you are not spiritual.
 
Why do you need the happiness when you could have built the Globe far earlier? More generally, it's bizarre to have an OCC challenge this detailed without a full list of national wonders.

You put so much work into this dude, so nice, but not really all that interesting (hopefully also not a DL). It would be much easier to win a religious victory in OCC conditions, or of course diplo.

There was a recent Monarch OCC space gauntlet, discussion here:

This is not OCC. A regular Deity game with otherwise standard settings.
 
Hmm it's pointless not playing OCC if you aren't going to build a settler. The only reason you would want to not play OCC is if you build a city and gift it to the AI for a diplo bonus to overcome close border tensions.
 
Here is my OOC try, unfortunately Willem van Oranje won a cultural victory on the other continent before i made contact with him :/. Should have started on pangea... (btw this was only on emperor and techtrade was off.. i only wanted to turn tech brokering off but i made a mistake)
The ciy location i had was verey good. Could have been better with less plains and more grassland. My max research when i finished playing was 1830 (in goldenage it was 2000+)

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mzprox, how can you have a city at size 21, work all the tiles in the BFC and still have surplus population to run specialists that are not settled GP?
 
16 free specialists from the national park wonder :)
Well hot-diggety-damn, I guess I am so quick in my quest for deforrestation that I never even considered that national park feature to be useful and therefore never even actively noticed the NP did that.
 
I agree on Peter being huge in OCC. The only limiting factor in OCC is health untill the NP comes online. I don't care about religions though since the globe theater gives you all the happiness you need. GT and NP secures your growth unlimited. However diplo is the thing that is key in OCC's and that is where a religion can really help. I don't play on deity but on monarch and I have to say Oracle is nice to have but not necessary. If the starting position is ok then you will outtech the others anyway.

What are the 5 national wonders you build since you need hapiness so badly? I always take GT, NE, NP, Ironworks and Oxford.

@MZPROX: Very nice city with 1800 beakers per turn. My highest so far is about 1400 beakers at normal speed at monarch.
 
Why do you need the happiness when you could have built the Globe far earlier? More generally, it's bizarre to have an OCC challenge this detailed without a full list of national wonders.

What are the 5 national wonders you build since you need hapiness so badly? I always take GT, NE, NP, Ironworks and Oxford.

This is not OCC, just a strategy to regular Deity games. :) Even changed the title of the guide now, since everyone seems to get it wrong. :( OCC Space Victories aren't nearly as grueling, even on Deity. In OCC you will get Globe Theatre, Ironworks and Oxford, and all of those make this way easier. This is super hard to pull off, beginning players will get squashed before reaching any of the objectives, most fanatics here will have trouble reaching Stage 3 alive. It's still a proven strategy, just takes skills. :D
 
I'm not near Deity so imo beating Deity is allready impressive, but beating Deity with 1 city without OCC rules is Incredibly ************ impressive :D
 
:eek: Wow. Just wow. So you won a Space Race Victory with one city without Oxford & the Globe. On Deity. That's what I call impressive. And I thought I was doing ok by beating Monarch. :blush:

I'm just disappointed you didn't turn Always War on, because you seem like a guy who likes a challenge. :mischief:

Congrats ! :goodjob:
 
Arf, missed the no OCC remark, then big hands up if you won it.
 
Unfortunately, imo your strategy is not repeatable base on the normal behavior and performance of AIs in deity level. AIs usually can launch in early 1900AD and approach a culture win in early 1800AD. Getting those wonders with only one city is usually impossible.
 
Unfortunately, imo your strategy is not repeatable base on the normal behavior and performance of AIs in deity level. AIs usually can launch in early 1900AD and approach a culture win in early 1800AD. Getting those wonders with only one city is usually impossible.

You don't seem to get how far you get with diplomatic manipulation in CIV4. If you don't play diplomacy, then yes those things will happen. Pyramids doesn't come reliably, the other wonders you will get easily due to tech lead, unless you have messed up at some point earlier.
 
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