A standing army?

[loffenx]

Since I made the jump to Deity It has been much more difficult to finance a quite large, standing army. Often I find myself outnumbered and crushed as soon as an AI manages to surprise me. I used to try and keep a decent number of troops up, since gathering important promotions etc felt so much more important than in vanilla, but on deity it crushes my economy. How do you people deal with this, any regular guidlelines or advices? It might just be me who is not used to the economic requirements of deity yet, but this seem to be the greatest challenge imo.

 

[it-ogo]

IMO, Deity mode is something strongly artificial. It is possible to win on Deity but you should mainly concentrate your attention on exploits. I dislike such kind of gameplay.

 

[Humakty]

In deity mode the AI will 'magically' generate troops, so you'll never be able to fight fairly. Use and abuse mages, if you can survive untill you have some. You could also go for Ashen Veil priests, but it seems uncertain that you'll survive that long either. World Builder ?

 

[loffenx]

Well, I have been close to achieving Religious Victories (my standard VC), but have always died as quickly as someone has suprised me or dragged me down into a two-front war. I do sort of like the survivor-game though, but it would be nice to stand a chance. I think I'll go and do some modmodding before I look into WB though

 

[slowcar]

i used to play deity only, switched down to immortal or flexible difficulty after the free promotions patch.

economy is the most important part on this level, markets, courthouses and kilmorph temples have to be everywhere. after a certain amount of cities you should consider it very well if you want to keep new cities.

by the time t3 and t4 units emerge the game gets a lot more difficult if you did not manage to carve yourself a standing in the world. magic is a big advantage but you have to be very careful not to get crushed by sheer numbers and better units. it can happen that you walk a stack of 2 heroes and 30+ units near a city, call the maelstroms etc you have available and have an empty field when its your turn again.

you have to field a big army - the main work will be done by few highly promoted units, but you need a lot to cover them, take over newly captured cities and defend against counterattacks.

one, sometimes two enemies at once can be fought. you have to be very careful about diplomacy - which is quite hard if everybody comes knocking to ask you to join their war (how i hate this...). vanilla/bts is a lot easier to play diplomacy-wise.
play aggressive - you can still make peace if you encounter a force too big to wield. on the other hand it is a lot more difficult to stop a declaring AI to war against you.

in the late game i try to have a strong high mobility troop i can dispatch to handle emergencies. 2-3 mages and 8-10 chariots.
guild of the nine also works wonders, one of the most important wonders ever as you can buy defenders in new cities and strengthen your front in backwards places when you get surprised. have hawks on all edges and check the AI diplo status to avoid these surprises.

in the very beginning the AI rexes like mad, a strong warrior force can take out a good part of any empire. watch out for doviello or varn gosam, they tend to rush the human player and will roll over you if you have your elite troops warring on another front.

in the beginning it is the ability to farm XP on barbarians and choose promotions wisely that helps in warfare (early heroes like saverous help, too), later on it is economic superiority (having a bigger empire, higher GNP etc) and the use of magic that levels the advantages of the AI.

if you want to train for survival play the survival challenge (OOC, deity, raging barbs, always war, 3 allied AIs, at least one barbarian, one-piece-map). if you manage to win it on small pangäa you are on the right way

 

[loffenx]

Thanks alot, slowcar!

Doviello and Varn Gosam are already on my watchlist, though they seem to be more reliable if you manage to get them to be friends, compared to say Faeryl. Last game I played me and Faeryl shared religon, trade and council seats and everybody was happy puppy untill she stabbed me in the back.

Overall I like deity because I like to play the underdog, and it also forces me to get a better understanding of all the relevant mechanics. I think I have to learn to pay more aggressivly, especially mid-game, and also plan my promotions and build a stronger well xp'd core-force for my army.

Hehe my survival-ratio is quite stretched as it is, I think I'll practice on bringin a few more games to mid-late game before I try that.

Thanks again!

 

[Demus]

if you want to train for survival play the survival challenge (OOC, deity, raging barbs, always war, 3 allied AIs, at least one barbarian, one-piece-map). if you manage to win it on small pangäa you are on the right way

quite a fun mode, this one. Although i've only finished it as the sidar (amazing, having 1 great scientist and 1 great engineer settled by turn 50). But that game was with my capital on a hill with copper on it, almost completely surrounded by river. Warriors till axemen, axemen till rathus + ghosts, stop by RoK if you can, head CoE after ghosts for shrine effect (so you can finally start building your first worker)

 

[Zechnophobe]

Yeah, the free promotions from .34 made Deity amazingly hard. I used to play on Immortal/Deity all the time, now I just do Immortal, or Emperor with rising difficulty. (Or just plain immortal if I'm playing a sucky faction like the Elohim or Bannor).

Also, let me put my backing behind the Guild of the Nine. This has become probably the strongest wonder in the game. You can use it defend anywhere in your empire by spending money, and allows you to drop your science rate to greatly increase your military production.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Deity is easier than before with one specific strategy (hurr stack busting spells) since the slower AI tech pace means they don't beat you to it, and quite a bit harder with any other strategy.

I can win there, but it's repetitive and boring since I only know one way. So screw that, immortal for me.

 

[bc1]

On single player deity, a good way to avoid economic meltown with army maintenance cost is to constantly plunder enemy cities & improvements. Which basically means do nothing but build units and use them. Take out enemy civs one at a time in overwhelming numbers. While at peace scramble to build new units for the next conquest, before the loot runs out. It's a time race and judgment call to build just enough units to take out the target civ in as short a time as possible. The problem with deity is that the game is won or lost fairly early: if you can take over the cities of 2-3 civs early you've built up enough momentum to win, even with the inevitable large tech gap.