Any game is winnable they said...

I'm not really a Deity player, I'm still trying to win all my Immortal games but here's what I did:

- DoW on Rome, stole Antium's worker.
- Scout > Monument > Granary > Shrine > Settler at pop4 > Caravan on the way
- Didn't realize you had selected Animal Husbandry. So... AH > Pottery. So far we got Pottery, Mining, Trapping, Writing and working on Calendar.
- Opened Tradition, just got Landed Elite. We'll get free Amphi.
- Stole Antana's worker. There's plenty lux, we won't need those guys for a while. Cleared camp for Valetta.
- Peace with Rome at t42 (coulda been earlier, maybe). He DoF'd at t43 or right away at t42. We're buddies now, you can maybe feed him Caravans and make him happy, he's losing money.
- Settler is gonna settle south of Valetta cuz that's good land and is far away from Mr.Caesar.

Umm, picked several ruins, one of those made the Scout an Archer. I think I got Mining from another. Then maybe population. I forget.

I think you can work it from there? I'm don't like Deity yet and I don't like Pedro either.

 

I'm not sure if I'm really willing to make the jump between being able to beat Civilization 5 on Diety and innovative inventors just yet...

 

no. You have 1 warrior and 1 archer. He will come in 5 turns and attack you with 7+ units.

 

^^This

He seems to have rolled the super aggressive random number. If you can get Hiawatha to DoW him, you might be able to sneak some stuff behind his cap, but you will need to balance units/growth/expansion/infrastructure better than I can or you will end up like I did. Safe until someone else wins lol.

 

What are you guys talking about, did you even bother loading the save? T79, he ain't even moving his troops, we're friendly, DoF, he's sending me trade routes and I got his settler blocked. Next up I'll grab Optics just so I can explore the other side.

 

But he did steal a worker early on and he's the only one that reported this action. Now, does this single action can have this effect? i.e. be able to stay friendly(if you make peace later) with Rome for a long time and build infras before units?

 

That is as sweet a spot for XBs as you are going to get. Zero loses projected. You just need them with log or range or preferably both. I assume you dont have that yet, so just keep killing units, maybe work city defeses lower trying for log. XBs work till low 60s, you just need meatshields and kill every unit coming out into the field. It really depends on terrain too, but I would say 90% of the time you can pull it off. Sometimes it takes 60 turns but still doable
(my last Portugal game)

 

blocking the settler is interesting. Maybe that stops him from declaring war on you.

 

With a dozen of Xbows i barely pushed Cumae. Had to kill strong units like LS and Knights before moving further. I confess that i reloaded a couple of times to maximize moves and % of success because in my first run i didn't make it at all. This Cesar guy is so annoying at that point.

I did bribe Hiawatha again to DoW Rome in exchange of 2 luxs(1 unique) and some gpt. Costly ask but really worth it. This reduces the large flow of units going at you. Otherwise it's almost impossible to advance. I lost approx. 60% of my army again. 1 city captured only isn't really good, but at least i can sleep for some dozen of turns before pushing again, probably with Gatling guns later. If by any chance Hiawatha manages to get Antium and harrass him in rome i will sneak into the war and steal Rome's cap.

I have to grow again...I added a city near the whales. I feel that i'm slow for deity but i still have hope. When i will encounter other civs it will be easier to catch up. So Astronomy is my next target.

Spoiler :

 

I am curious why you pushed on Cumae and not running around and pushing his cap from behind. Too many units? I know I made a mistake giving him peace and not pushing, but I'm not the master of early war.

BTW, I had to give Hiawatha the same hard deal - very much worth it imo.

 

Like i said, i reloaded a couple of times and it includes the turn after capture of Cumae. When i played the next turn while staying at war he reconquered his city and i couldn't do anything about it. Well in fact i ''knew'' that it would happen but played the turn anyway just to make sure that i was right

I tried another combination 2-3 turns before and same result. He always does retake his city. And if i wait a bit more and try to kill more units to counter the retake option he simply reduce my army turn by turn before i could capture it.

So i had no choice but to make peace.

 

And i got that chance

Rome made peace with Hiawatha on same turn than our peace treaty. Their units were away from his capital and i immediately DoWed him and throwed my Xbows around his cap. I burned his iron tile and he suffered of a 50% ressource penalty. That was easy.

Spoiler :

We made peace again and gave me the crappy Neapolis city that i sold to Hiawatha :

Spoiler :

Are you kidding me? This is awesome. I bought all Hiawatha's gold. Then first congress appeared. Suddenly, i had met everyone in a single turn. I didn't know about this feature! Pretty nice, but i need to find other cs because i reached consulates. I stole a couple of techs from Romans like Chivalry and Banking and retreive myself with a L3 spy.

Situation some turns later...i'm feeling a huge breeze in my back suddenly! Some cargos will take care of fast growth coupled with Tradition :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Why does he burn Neapolis down after giving to me huge gpt?

 

I suppose this game could be worse. Shaka could have appeared from the south with a horde of Impis

 

So...possible or not? Well, yes it is. I took the easiest route with a diplo victory on turn 270. First time diplo at deity and it's pretty easy to get all the gold needed. I allied every cs and had still some gold in bank.

I focused peacefully on DoFs and signed 2 round of RAs, 2nd round with a 50% boost from Rationalism. Rush bought only 2 or 3 public schools. Finished Rationalism and got Oxford to Tele around 245. Had to wait 15 turns before getting the last timer.

Rome denounced me every 30 turns but other civs didn't care at all. Only England wasn't DoFed even if he asked me because other AIs were hating Liz

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

@Tabarnak

Nice job! t270 diplo is actually faster than I expected.

 

Tabarnak, you the man

 

That cap placement is killing me. I really want to forward settle Rome then drop a citadel but the spots left are poop.

And opening with Animal Handling? Were you planning on beelining Trapping for the Truffles?

So I've a Scarcher perched on a hill watching Rome mine a Desert tile. Hmmm, what could be going on here? Sigh.

 

So I did what I mentioned, dropped a city near the whales then a Citadel on Rome's doorstep to swipe his Iron. I used that Iron to bribe Hiawatha into DoWing Rome. Irony. Rome sent his feeble Legion off to die plus a whole mess of Ballista then had to settle for making Spearmen and Horsemen like everybody else. I may not win but I'm smiling. No production and food in cap does not make me hopeful.

 

Do you guys think every early-rush scenario is defensible? For example, Japan comes at you with 14 ancient era units and you are defending with 4, or 18 with some CompBows mixed in and you have 6. You have two cities on the coast next to each other and they would split their forces and attack both cities simultaneously. You can reduce their forces by half but my units are basically gone and they will take over the cities. Except for a few forests (I was playing the Celts), not a lot of defensive terrain. They never wanted a DoF, nor could you get them to war on anyone else and you didn't do anything towards them except to exist.