Advice Request for Deity Game

[Skipity]

I'm trying to make the jump to deity. Immortal has become pretty easy, but I haven't beating deity except via religious cheese.

To win, I chose one of the strongest leaders (certainly top 5) Mansa Musa. I've also gone with the accepted "real" settings:

Normal Speed
Random Opponents
Fractal Map
Barbs on - no huts / no events.

Further, I"m playing with the Buffy mod (the HoF Bug Mod) so there's no world builder funny business going on.

Anyway on to the game. It's 740 AD:

Spoiler :

I build the Mids and TGL, and Decided to DoW on Jao (he can't be trusted) with trebs / phants / mace and knights.

In police state and the war is progressing nicely. Unfortunately, the midevil war and not aggressively running scientitsts means I wasn't really in the liberalism or economics race (though i did give in to a demand from zara for guilds - not sure if that was a good idea or not)

(I've only spawned 3 Great people so far: an 2 engineers (one that bulbed engineering) and a great scientist. 1 of the engineers is sitting around waiting for something to do.

Here's the word and some stats:

My thoughts are to go for steel and the DoW someone (maybe zara?) after I cap Jao.

Saves are attached. I'd love to get feedback from the likes of TheMeInTeam, Kosshin, AbigCivfan, Duckweed, DMOC, Chris67132 . . . etc. The people on the boards that have really helped me raise my game.

Am I on the right track? Are there any glaring weaknesses in what I'm doing or the Steel plan?

Help me out! I'd love to make this my first legitimate Deity win.

Thanks!

 

[ben-jammin]

Zara is going to start teching extremely fast into the industrial and modern eras, you either need to get him really quick or you might have to start switching over to espionage for most of your teching. Once he gets machineguns your cannon plan is pretty much over.

On the other hand it looks like there's enough land (assuming one continent) that you could win with land percentage without even fighting Zara, if you take every other city on the continent. Which is a decision you need to make soon because it would mean erasing Joao instead of capping him. Without vassals you could easily keep Zara friendly while you take on the other AIs. I'm just suggesting this because Zara is such a fast techer later in the game, you may have an easier time taking out the other AIs completely with siege than capping them one by one in a very slow-moving war when Zara and possible Pericles are teching things like rifling and steam power in just a few turns each.

edit: Also IMO teching guilds was a mistake. You could have traded for it and been closer to steel. Knights weren't needed with the trebs, you could have built elephants and put the extra 30 hammers each into more trebs.

 

[Doshin]

You're doing fine, but you'll need a much much bigger stack to take out Zara. He's been involved in one successful war and seems to be plotting again.

It was a mistake to build the Mids, TGL, and attempt a medieval war. There are a finite number of hammers in the game, and if you devote all of your forests to early wonders, it becomes difficult to immediately follow through with a rush. Building the Mids and TGL with Mansa puts you in the perfect position to win Lib and mass upgrade Elephants.

I'd head for Cannons too. Switch into Representation and Mercantilism immediately, and whip troops more aggressively (whip the AP buildings too). Also, trade your Deer to Montezuma and your Cow to Pericles for GPT.

A Printing Press <----> Gunpowder trade with Pericles would be ideal, but unfortunately he is likely to research or trade for Gunpowder before you manage to invest the 1000 or so beakers needed to make the trade.

 

[shulec]

The 4000 BC autosave is Ragnar, chieftan. Please attach Mansu Buffy file!

 

[pepe26]

OP, fractal maps are much harder than pagaea... I suggst picking pangaea to beat deity. will check you you save now

 

[pepe26]

and please fix the initial save so we can shadow you game

 

[Seraiel]

Though I'm not in the list of the mentioned people, I give advice, in form of hinting towards the timeline. Screens are taken at 700 AD, which imo is too late for the 1st war. Anyhow, this doesn't mean, that you cannot win this game, so good luck!

 

[klonoklown]

It was a mistake to build the Mids, TGL, and attempt a medieval war. There are a finite number of hammers in the game, and if you devote all of your forests to early wonders, it becomes difficult to immediately follow through with a rush. Building the Mids and TGL with Mansa puts you in the perfect position to win Lib and mass upgrade Elephants.

I definitely agree with this statement here. I'm no deity player but one thing I've learned in Civ is not to try to do too much. If you were planning on a medieval war, the Lib race should have took a back seat to the war. Therefore you wouldn't need the wonders, and the rush could have been kicked off much sooner.

I also agree with the other poster's as well about going the cannon route, and maybe just leaving Zara alone and shoot for a domination. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Strickl3r]

Looks like you razed a desert city. Was it a barb city or Jaos?

I'm not 100% sure, but from my experience razing a city isn't such a good idea, if you are planning to vassal somebody fast.
Can anyone confirm that it has a negative influence on the capitulazion mechanism? I'm curious...

 

[Skipity]

So - sorry about the screwup on the autosave - don't know what happened there.

I wasn't really planning to war, it was more that Portugal didn't even have metal casting, let alone ivory. He can declare at pleased, so I went with the old mantra of "Do unto others before they can do unto you."

I didn't raze that desert city. I think it was a barb city that the AIs razed because it was a size 1.


----
On another note, while I was waiting for replies, I paused the game and started another deity game as Elizabeth from England . . . and won my first Diplomination victory on Deity!

I was actually going for conquest (once it was in the bag) but the colony vassels made mainland AIs think they were doing better than they were. Do colonies EVER renounce protection of the motherland? I could have gotten the conquest eventually - but wanted to bag the first real deity win.

That map (the one I attached here) was fun.

 

[Izuul]

I wasn't really planning to war, it was more that Portugal didn't even have metal casting, let alone ivory. He can declare at pleased, so I went with the old mantra of "Do unto others before they can do unto you."

This states otherwise: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11931731&postcount=26

 

[Skipity]

My mistake.

Wow thanks for that. Though I've looked at the raw spreadsheet, that's a beautiful thread you linked to.