Any tips for appoaching Deity?

[gavenkoa]

I understand most of game mechanic, learnt lots of tricks and want to beat Deity.

In contrast to Immortal on Deity I see no reason for Wonders, unless failgold, actively monitor tech race, bribe, ask to money tribute for 10T peace, carefully take research path, no careless unit death etc.

I need early success and my current problems:

* parity or lag in military techs, so military campaign is painful
* lose nice spots during land grabbing

Initially I decided to play tiny / small maps (fractal) with one-two extra AI. This allows:

* to block AI with less cities using features of small land size (one-two cities with both sides of cost line can divide island in a half)
* slow down AI tech trade (less AIs - less research race speed)
* smaller world - lesser unit spamming

If I'm not wrong smaller size also means larger maintenance cost for the same size empire... So smaller size also may complicate game too...

Another thing - I choose Financial leader, or Charismatic, or Philosophical - someone who can offset penalties of Deity.

I don't want to be dependent on a unique unit like http://www.kalle-online.net/blog/games/civilization/civ-4-deity-strategy/ chooses Inca for Quetchua and early rush... I think it would be fun on a next stage of Deity play...

So the question is: what settings / leader / game type should I choose for initial training of Deity difficulty? I mean those that lead to a bit easier game for me.

 

[sampsa]

* parity or lag in military techs, so military campaign is painful

Well, for early wars you won't have a tech lead. You have to rely on surprise mostly and be opportunistic.

* lose nice spots during land grabbing

Yes, you won't be beating deity AI to most spots, therefore you have to choose what you really want. If someone settlers "your" spots he/she is likely the victim of your first war.

I think smaller map leads to easier game. You can also choose pushover AIs as your opponents.

I still recommend you to watch Lain's openings btw, now that you've improved a bit I'm sure you understand more of what you see.

 

[Tobiyogi]

I agree that relying on a unique unit does not show that you are ready for Deity. If you can rush your neighbor only because you have Quechuas, Immortals or Prätorians, then there is something wrong. I also play many Deity openings at the moment and my conclusion so far is that you can NOT play with a predefined strategy. Maybe you want to build some wonders if circumstances are good. Maybe you should better axe-rush someone who strangely enough has only archers?
Of course, watching the YT games helps you learning the basic moves but decisions must be taken individually.
For me, big part of deity playing is to time the attack date. In most of my cases, I was too late! Besides a cultural victory, you cannot win the game with 6-8 peacefully settled cities. So war is inevitable at some point. The question is when.

 

[Windsor]

Quechua rushing on marathon speed is cheese and not an efficient way of truly learning to beat deity. With that said, I would start by playing top tier leaders and good starts. No one gets their first deity win with a plains cow start as Tokugawa. So grab one of your comfort-picks. I got my first deity win as Hannibal on a standard sized fractal map on normal speed.

I'm not a fan of changing game settings that much. It messes with your timings since improvements and techs doesn't take as long as you're used to.

The jump from immortal to deity really is huge compared to the other difficulties. It's quite normal having to go back down to immortal again (which at that point tends to feel a lot easier) for a while, but in the end there's nothing special about deity. There's no reason to suddenly turn your strategy upside down. It's all about just tightening up the game and be even more ruthless/focused in your priorities.

 

[krikav]

Wonderful put by @Windsor

There's no reason to suddenly turn your strategy upside down. It's all about just tightening up the game and be even more ruthless/focused in your priorities.

Small things I can add:
Barbs all of a sudden become absolutely brutal and they will kill you unless you play properly.
Upkeep suddenly become a thing to really pay attention to.

All in all, deity is a setting where you won't get away with as many mistakes.

 

[Qactus]

Here's a thread from a while back with a similar request, where a couple of nice maps were posted: Strong leaders, strong starts, but no Egypt/Inca stuff. I can recommend both the Willem map I posted there and the Hannibal map Pangaea posted. The other Willem one also really looked great, but I had already read the writeup and didn't play myself.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/wanted-easy-deity-maps.551617/

 

[rah]

In tech equality or deficit successful wars = more siege.
Or cannons.

 

[gavenkoa]

Barbs all of a sudden become absolutely brutal and they will kill you unless you play properly.

As I understand the problem with Barbs on Deity is that they have Archery, while you are 6-20 turns away of it ))

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/playing-on-deity-cant-do-anything-with-barbarians.549548/

I played most of Immortal games with raging barbs and mastered fogbusting ))

I tried few Deity games with raging Barbs and they require me to go for Warrior (instead of Worker) first. And "Hunting => Archery" can be important.

Same map with Raging barbs leads to different results - one game they might wipe AI, another game theirs cities are easy targets for AI. Because of luck of consistency I won't attempt it again ))

 

[Fippy]

You are not supposed to just trying raging barbs

If you are serious about training on deity, play with normal settings.
Nobody and i really mean nobody considers barbs entering borders at turn ~12 part of learning something, other than for fun or special games.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Also, raging barbs slow down AI in an unnatural way, so this will eventually become easier for you : because you are way behind anyway, but AIs cannot benefit from their strong starting position (most of them retreat their new settlers everytime they see a barb archer).

 

[gavenkoa]

I improved my game lately by:

* settling near the river (+2 Health!!)
* teching Sailing:
- with rivers no need for roads
- all river adjusted resources also became available without roads
- no need complicated roads to neighbor after Alphabet and most probably each city commerce income +1G => +2G (foreign routes!!).
* planing Workers movement in advance
- to chop Monument in one turn (with Math)
- to enable resource before hitting penalties (Health/Hapiness) in the city

I tried to avoid river sites to preserve tile with extra +1G... But the cost of -2F = -4H with slavery!

I know the importance of Currency (extra route and conversion of H to G) and target it early. But Sailing can improve economy almost the same as Currency (depending on map layout and availability of trade partners).

 

[gavenkoa]

I have problems with Slavery.

Last game I decided not to use it and improved my game significantly:

I value Gold/Prod/Food stats. With Slavery my (red) line was 2-3 times lower then of an opponent.

I had rich lands with hills and riverside (and Financial). I think it is more efficiently to work tiles than whip. Financial riverside cottages very quickly provide +4G, mines 1F=>3H, while Slavery converts 1F=>2-2.5H but you lose on idle cottages -4G!!

I think that Slavery is only for:
* pure commerce / hammer sites with extra Food
* undeveloped sites while green mines / cottages are under construction
* to speedup important building
* for emergency whip
* to make early settler / worked earlier for land grabbing

Importance of Slavery so exaggerated on this forum that I blindly applied it without calculations. Need to reread articles on Slavery....

 

[sampsa]

Certainly, working cottages is great. Slavery should be used mostly to get out settlers/workers/granaries or for producing units very swiftly. Other than that, you don't really need and -neutral cottages are awesome.

Need to reread articles on Slavery.

Maybe those articles created the problem in the first place.

Edit: If you only watched Lain all this would be very clear for you...

 

[gavenkoa]

It is T110 (BC-0125) and I am lagging behind AI in a tech race.

I know about late resource grabbing (+2 Heals from Pasture/Wheat) because I made a beeline to Currency and traded Agriculture / Animal Husbandry later...

The most frustrating is a research rate:

I founded 8 cities and probably its the main cause:

Rivals are with the same city count:

I have only 5 workers. Isn't that a problem too?

My research path:

Initial save and T110 are in attachments.

 

[sampsa]

Agriculture and Animal Husbandry are more important than currency, because food is important. You are falling behind in tech because your cities are small and not developed - you have just been expanding too slow. Why not take 5per turn and gems+sugar via trade? Slow building a worker is bad (because stagnating under happy cap is bad), try to always whip them.

Yes, because of the jungle you need lots of workers.

 

[gavenkoa]

Agriculture and Animal Husbandry are more important than currency

First 2 cities are share seafood. That's why I didn't go for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.

You are falling behind in tech because your cities are small and not developed

OK!

Slow building a worker is bad

Workers & settlers were built via 2 or 3 citizen whip (first with 1Citiz whip). Although I practiced waiting 1-3T to maximize overflow.

 

[Fippy]

Agriculture and Animal Husbandry are more important than currency, because food is important.

No offense but did you look at his save? There was 1 dry rice and 1 plains cow, skipping at least Agri looks like a good choice.

 

[krikav]

@gavenkoa What techs did you self-tech and what techs did you trade for?
For me, who is abit lazy with opening saves, a screenshot overview of the area is very good.

5 workers sounds abit on the low side, but it might be OK, depends on the land.

 

[gavenkoa]

There was 1 dry rice and 1 plains cow, skipping at least Agri looks like a good choice.

Yeah, that's the reason.

I tried to apply sampsa advice and it had impact:

You are falling behind in tech because your cities are small and not developed

* so instead of spawning settlers I spawned workers - to be sure old cities work on improved tiles only
* more cottages, I am Financial so after 10T with +1G I get +3G - worth waiting instead of sea +2F+3G (after +1F building)!
* chop-chop-chop, I tried to chop less early to preserve forest for Math, but now I put early +20H forest into earlier Workers / Granary / Settlers!
* I still targeted Math because I am CHA and Obelisk gives +1Happiness and +30H from chop enough for 1T build! Granary and late Library also benefits.
* I am isolated so no need for extra-quick expansion - a new city should contribute instead of just grabs territory
* I still researched Agri and AH myself (after Math) because chops of Obelisks helped with access to Health resources early!

This time I skipped path to Compass (my leader has special building instead of Harbor with +1 Trade Route). Instead I went for Aesthetics, had a good trade and won Free Artist!

Resulted research rate was amazing (two times better of earlier attempts)! Also I have GA+GS and I dedicated 2 cities for GS! I believe I can win Liberalism race that time.

There is Marble in far Tundra and this time AI landed on my island. Failgold (double rate income instead of working Commerce by Currency) and more aggressive settlement are my next goals.

This map helps to improve worked / economy aspects. If I wasn't isolated I needed to fight for the land and build troops. It complicates game significantly...

 

[Gumbolt]

Cohon gets you 1 extra trade route. Calendar get's you 3 decent commerce tiles. You have 2 luxury resources you could of traded for.

I think the cow fish site should of been settled sooner. With so much jungle early on many of the early cities looked marginal. If you wanted to settle the cow/rice site that makes tech decisions a bit harder.

What were the best techs to skip here? Pottery and cottages seems quite important. That and making most of 3c coastal tiles and financial trait.

Tiny maps would probably make this slightly easier albeit keeping up with ai techwise might be more challenging on a jungle heavy map. When an ai has a free settler and is limited on land it stops any real expansion.

Agree 5 workers with 7 cities seems low. Especially if you are farming plains tiles.

Yes always have a plan and play the map. Aesth is always a good early trade bait.