Any way to win on Diety without an early rush?

[JudgeDeath]

Slowpoke: That may well be the case. Probably luck of the draw thing again, but much more likely on larger maps.

Still, that situation does rather take away the problem of AI DoWs. I would think that it makes the Babylon Science rush, or other peaceful strategies, more workable.

 

[JudgeDeath]

First off, what are you talking about? Of course it makes some difference. But you're asserting that on a large map you will always get conditions that make diplomacy possible and that you will almost never get said conditions on a standard map.

So what exactly are these conditions that make successful diplomacy possible or not? We can't have an argument about it without defining those things first, making your comment about logarithmic distance differences a red herring.

EDIT: is this an argument that having more space that makes large maps easier? Frankly that's going to make it harder if the AI's are farther from each other.

No, it's about being father apart. Surely you have worked out that the AI gets aggressive when your cities borders are next to theirs? Hopefully from there it's not too large a step to seeing that a larger map will mean that you get less aggression. Which means that peaceful strategies have more chance of working. And that's the relationship that's logarithmic.

OFC you could be unlucky on a large map, but the chances of being right next door are far smaller. Now if we're talking about rushing, then proximity might well be an advantage.

 

[aimlessgun]

But it's a tradeoff. Diplomacy in this game is utterly reliant on the AI's attacking each other instead of you. Since the AI's seem to be programmed to settle towards the player, a large map can make it more difficult to have AI's dislike each other more than yourself.

A large map might make it easier, but the idea that it is an order of magnitude easier is what I'm taking issue with. Civs will still roll right towards you with their first settler build with the intention of sticking a city 3 tiles from your capital. No matter the map size, you have to block those settlers.

 

[edcrane]

Sure. For some reason, the AI is incredibly bad at capitalizing on its advantages to produce a solid tech lead. Around turn 90, I'm usually about 10% behind the most literate civ. This gap stays approximately the same until I've cleared out my continent and gotten happiness under control. By turn 250, I'm usually the tech leader, at which point a win is more or less assured.

The only tricky part about winning without an early rush is that rival civs on the same continent tend to have a decent number of more advanced units. Luckily, the AI is so awful at deploying units effectively that competent use of the terrain is usually more than enough to overcome whatever advantage the AI has with respect to tech and production.

 

[crono storm]

It's possible, you can make reseach pacts and ally with someone. Small wars with city capturing can make the IA sussurrender and load you with some gold and resources.
I used deity level to keep training multiplayer strategy, because if it works at deity level, it should work with real players.(And actually works)
My experience is very limitated too, I only played on tyny or small maps with four or six civilizations.

 

[Slowpoke]

Really, I think the negative relations for A.I. hating you for vicinity should be reduced a lot, from what seems to be -20000000000000000000000

 

[Martin Alvito]

My last game the AI Civs took out most of the CS's early, including the only Maritime. Don't think you can rely on a Diplo victory on Deity, and if you go for it and it doesn't pan out...

...then you just leverage your tech advantage to liberate enough city-states. I've yet to see a Standard map size game where there were multiple AIs that could stay on the battlefield with me in the turn 180-220 window prior to the deciding vote. Just pick on the backward AIs that own city-states and avoid the juggernaut. If you must take on the juggernaut, surprise attack it a few turns before the vote with a coordinated amphibious operation that strikes just the city-states you need. Hitting an extra one is usually a good idea, in case something goes horribly wrong.

If you get to the late game. Unless you early rush, in my experience, the AI may hit you before you get there. OTOH it may not. It seems to depend on how close your are to AIs at startup.

I've yet to have a game where the AIs on my continent did not come after me. You need to have some semblance of a military in order to avoid getting rolled. Any more, I just build Warriors and upgrade the Iron line. That and a few Catapults later on, and you're good to go for defensive wars.

As aimlessgun notes, diplomacy can save you a lot of headaches. But you need civs that hate someone other than you to make it work. Some games it's feasible, and other games it isn't. The big thing to realize is that if you receive an offer from someone nearby to declare war on someone distant, you should always, always take them up on it.

As for the GL: you don't need it. At this point, I am finishing a University in the capital in the 80's, between turns 95-105 in first wave cities and 105-120 in second wave cities. That enables you to rock 500+ Science per turn at around turn 120, and with the Babs you earn a GS every 5-6 turns as well.

 

[stii]

What I've found is the AI really really doesn't like it when you settle cities towards them so if you try hard enough most of the time you won't get bum rushed early on.

You can then beeline to rifling/artillery which the AI just can't handle not matter how many units they have. Then it is simply a case of liberating CS or capitals.

Sometimes you will start really close but even then building an archer quickly and selling lux to buy a 2nd holds off a huge number of AI controled idiots.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

Am not sure about what you mean by early rush But I usually DOW my neighbours not before turn 80. Play diplomacy right, pick your city location properly, and let them wear each others with pointless fights then step in....
I rarely build Horseman (even on diety, they will get pikeman rally early), and my Early defense is usually lots of archers with 1-2 warrior. That should fend off any early attack on you... With China UU and GG, its easy afterwards. ( I admit only play china on diety )

 

[Biz_]

there should just be a setting for always peace so you can test it yourself

stopping the AI from rushing you really isn't under your control

now if you want to make an army capable of defending yourself but choose not to use it to attack anyone, i guess that's up to you but it seems easy enough to win without warmongering

 

[Liquidated]

A blow by blow account of winning deity on Pangaea with the Ottomans.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392335

Hats off to Sullla and the crew for exposing in detail what is so broken about the game.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Biz_]

A blow by blow account of winning deity on Pangaea with the Ottomans.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392335

Hats off to Sullla and the crew for exposing in detail what is so broken about the game.

Cheers!
-Liq

how is that not an early rush?

 

[The Great Apple]

how is that not an early rush?

I think technically Japan declared war on them, rather than the other way round. I'm sure it would have happened the other way around shortly after. (Disclaimer: Not actually followed the thread). ICS was used as well. Boring!

 

[aimlessgun]

Here's a Deity, diplomatic, zero war win on a standard size pangea map. And it's OCC.





Look, there's clearly some luck. My nearest neighbor was Ghandi: had it been Toku a strategy change would probably have been in order, though it's possible I could have pawned him off on someone in time. Interactions between the other civs might have gone less convieniently. But the point is that you can pull of a peaceful, or peaceful enough, game, a decent amount of the time. If you can pull it off a decent amount of the time I say it counts as "a way to win Deity without an early rush".

Is this game rife with cheese, such as diplomatic victory with Greece? Are city states and patronage utterly ludicrous for an OCC game? Yes and yes. But you can't just outlaw every single thing in the game.

Notes on the game itself: my first 2 POS requests from the AI were vs Ghandi and Darius, so I tried to paint them as villains with more pacts, buddied up with everyone else. Ended up having a tug of war with Darius over a city state, giving myself a powerful enemy. Dealt with this by keeping him at war with someone the entire rest of the game, mostly with Russia, thus guarding me north and south. The Ghandi bashing worked and he found himself under attack most of the game also, securing my Western border. At some point France attacked too many city states, turned himself into public enemy no1, and served as a useful distraction for about 50 turns.

Anyways, I spent a significant amount of cash bribing people into wars the entire game, but it worked out (love Big Sis Cathy watching over me in that ending screen). Though Cathy did buy out 5 of my city states 2 turns before the vote!!! Luckily she declined to use her massive cash reserves to re-re-take them 1 turn later (getting better AI...but not quite good enough).