Advice on beating a deity game with Darius at 1450AD

[VirusMonster]

I have started a deity game that I want to submit to HOF, but oh well it is very tough. I think i need some general advice.

Game started on 3 seperate continents. I was isolated, the 4 AIs were distributed evenly on the remaining 2 continents. Thus setup allowed me to rex to 10 cities, get Liberalism first, but I could not convert the Rifling advantage into more land, since I had to build some Galleons to transport my army, and two of the strongest AIs declared war on my weaker target before my ships could reach the shores :-/ So if I am going to war at this point, it would be against AIs who already have Rifling and more land than my empire.

One of the continents now belongs to the score leader AI. And the other one is also controlled almost entirely by the 2nd strongest AI.

So I am stuck with the smallest continents against 2 other AIs, whose continents are bigger than mine, not by much, maybe 1-2 cities.

One of the AIs is Ragnar, the other one is Degaulle. I am going to be the first one to research Communism and will get a GreatSpy. My reseach slider is at 80%. Since these to scoreleading AIs seem buddies, I can't bribe them :-/ I could bribe at one point in time when one of them had recently researched Astronomy, but I did not want to give away my tech advantage at that point.

Do you have any general suggestions at this point? I am interested in winning this game either through diplomacy, domination, or space.

edit: I forgot to take a screenshot when I ended my last playing session, otherwise I would have posted the map.

 

[Gooblah]

I'm not a Deity player, but here's an idea:

Try bribing one of them. Due to their massive armies and tech advantage, they may fight to the death, and if you can get other AIs involved, even better. Be a leech, assaulting coastal cities of the losing AI to gain diplomatic bonuses with the other..

 

[VirusMonster]

thank you gooblah, I am open to any suggestion :-/ I thought i had a nice game until so far, I need to be more opportunistic at this point or I will be disappointed.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm no deity player either, but I'd probably just go space, building some nice defence forces, maybe getting the internet if you need it. Unless you are in danger of losing to culture. You say you are teching at 80% and have a great spy on the way, so you should be OK tech wise.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

The way you describe it, it sounds winnable. How are the AIs progressing to victory? Is any of them in position for early cultural vic?

 

[VirusMonster]

well ragnar has 4 religions, and I see at least 5-6 of his cities with 4 religion in them. Last time I checked the victory screen, (I don't want to reload the game, because it is HOF and I want to minimize my save/reload), 2 of his cities were 40-50k culture. I believe he needs 150k culture to gain a cultural victory. Don't have much idea whether he will be able to pull one off at this point however....

The strongest AI(degaulle) landed on the other strong AI's(ragnar) continent to finish off the one remaining AI(victoria). I was late to steal Victoria's cities, 2 of her cities were captured by Ragnar and 1 by Degaulle. I hope maybe this new border sharing on the new continent can help me to bribe these two against each other.

I'll be the first one to reach communism and I have several other techs they want. So I have the goodies, but they are just too good friends :-/

Edit: the reason I am teching at 80% because of the financial and organized... My cities are big too, most of them in the 13-17 range. I am running Mercantilism. Just used one of my GreatProphets for a GoldenAge to rushreseach Communism.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Meh, just go space then. Build a nice naval defence and some tanks/artillery.

 

[VirusMonster]

UnconqueredSun, how would you win at this point? build army attack? or space? how? this will be my first Deity HOF submission if I succeed

 

[Wanderapple]

Perhap you could ask 1 of them to convert to different religion, civic with the other one or try abusing Temple of Apostle, then create further by asking 1 to stop trading with another one.

 

[VirusMonster]

I am plannig to use a change religion spy mission but one of them already is using free religion. maybe first change civics to theocracy? then change religion?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Can't you only change them to civics/religions that you are currently running?

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Can't really say without seeing the game. However, I take this is BtS, therefore with Darius you could beat them economy-wise even at ~equal landmass. So that's space (Internet might be important depending on the tech situation).

Attacking them is also an option. Look up Burn's fight in homeyg's deity thread - there Burn prevented one AI from launching and another from winning cultural, and eventually made it to a very late (post 2000 I think) war-powered victory.

No idea if diplo/religious is an option for you. If you go that road, you might need to manipulate who gets and who keeps the UN. Probably no need to say it, but don't forget the favored civic diplo bonus.

Cultural: AI cultural vic speeds depends on their number of religions moreso than human. It's vital to identify their progress to cultural, it's the most likely way for BtS AI to win. Space is #2. The others aren't really AI options, even Time won't happen on deity unless you actively interfere.

 

[VirusMonster]

Can't you only change them to civics/religions that you are currently running?

i think you can convert them to anything as long as they have the option to choose that civic&religion themselves.

alright, I will try some espionage change civic&religion missions + bribing; if not successful, go for space. If I can make them hate each other, it would be great.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

i think you can convert them to anything as long as they have the option to choose that civic&religion themselves.

alright, I will try some espionage change civic&religion missions + bribing; if not successful, go for space. If I can make them hate each other, it would be great.

Hmm OK, that's different to doing it via negotiations with diplomacy then, and the manual page 13 seems to agree with me as well... might have changed in the patch though.

 

[Wanderapple]

Look for and try to destroy all of the + relation information between them, also if they have trading + relation, then destroy all of the supply that they are currently trading.

 

[VirusMonster]

bah got invaded pretty badly by Degaulle, the leading AI I stole Steel from him, but the main reason that led to his attack was my bribe to Ragnar to stop trading with him :-/ I could not bribe them for war. Gonna watch the diplomacy screen more carefully next time... Ragnar was going for cultural, his cities were 70k,50k,40k at 1500sh..

 

[SnowlyWhite]

abit late, but:

were they sharing the same religion? if not, couldn't you switch one of them to fr? Both of them are understandable ppl. who never sneeze to a bribe

another one would've been to leave one of(victoria's I understand) cities and have her capitulate to one of them. If both of them hated her, then probably they would've go for each other due to poor relations with the other guy's vassal

I mean, as long as you're at pleased, de gaulle is a fine pet...