Beating Deity: A Peaceful Cultural Victory

[snarzberry]

13/07/2011 Hi everyone, just letting you know that since I wrote this the game has been heavily altered through patches to the point that this guide is now pretty irrelevant. Good luck looking for new strategies.

- snarz.







***UPDATE***
Patch 2.17 has changed things in the opening of OCC cultural games. Details are in the thread discussion. Basically the opening will now entail taking the free Great Person from the Liberty tree in order to construct Stonehenge. The overall plan still applies. Good luck!
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Ok, you know you've been waiting for it - someone to post an article about how to beat Deity with a strategy that isn't dependent on bloodshed, large empires and being a maniacal puppet-master/dictator. Well, here it is!

The Super-Capital, Peaceful, Deity, Cultural Victory

I think many of you who, like me, were builders in Civ 4 will enjoy playing this strategy. It focuses on areas that are basically ignored, or at least sparingly utilized, by most people playing Civ 5 out there, namely - Great Engineer generation, Wonder construction and Diplomacy.

This strategy is also a One City Challenge strategy that can win against Deity because, you guessed it, we will not be expanding beyond our capital. Nor will we be engaging in war of any kind. Nor will we build a military unit of any kind, and actually we will build no units other than our initial worker. Don't believe you can get away with that on Deity? Read on...

Disclaimer: This strategy utilizes managing Research Agreements (RAs) to give the best chance of providing desirable techs. IMO this is no more an exploit than strategic teching with trading in mind in Civ 4. Please do not use this thread as a place to discuss whether or not it's exploitative. If you think it is, just don't play this way.

This strategy should work on any map type but I've used it on Standard Speed - Continents/Pangaea - Deity

This guide will also dispel two commonly held myths about Deity level.

MYTH 1: You can't build any early wonders, the AI gets there too fast.
MYTH 2: Peace with your neighbors is impossible without a strong military.

First things first - What Civ to use? I've used this strategy on Deity successfully with three Civs. Egypt, Arabia and Siam. Egypt and Arabia are best, but for the first attempt I recommend using Egypt.

Overview

Spoiler :

Here's how it works. Victory will be achieved by developing a super-capital city in which is built exactly these World Wonders - Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, the Sistine Chapel, the Louvre and Cristo Redentor. It's possible to pull this off by careful generation of Great Engineers who will build the last three of these wonders, by utilizing two crucial mid game 3-tech slingshots and by guiding RAs down a specific tech path. At the end of the game, probably around 1800 CE the capital will be an awesome sight to behold!

The Opening

Spoiler :

The first 30 - 40 turns are all about netting Stonehenge (SH). Tech immediately Pottery and Calender. The build order is monument - worker. This is one of the elements that makes it more likely that SH will be built. Taking monument first means that during the construction of SH the second Social Policy (SP) will become available. Selecting Aristocracy after the initial Tradition will shave a couple of turns off the build time. Grow the capital to size 3 and then stagnate and focus on production. The city can be starved for a few turns when SH is nearing completion to save another turn.

There are a few variables here that depend on what type of terrain the capital occupies and what bonuses (if any) are received from ruins. If the worker is completed before Calendar is researched, good, if not there is a decision to be made. If it's only one or two turns and there is forest tile to chop, finish the worker. Then tech Mining and chop. If there's no good way for the worker to speed up SH then wait until it's completed. Obviously Egypt is best for this. In fact if you do it this way in my experience Egypt is a favorite to build it, and the other Civs are around 50/50. If you're Egypt and all of the conditions are perfect (not even counting getting gifted Pottery from a ruin, which is even better), you'll finish it around turn 32. But if you're on track to finish it by turn 40, you have a good shot at it.

If you fail to build SH either continue playing with another plan, or reload. It's essential to winning this way. Not only because of the base 8 culture per turn, although that is awesome. The Great Engineer(GE) points it generates are paramount.

Tech Path and RA Slingshots

Spoiler :

After SH is built tech Writing - Philosophy (unless there's marble available, in which case tech Masonry first and improve the hex). By now you should have one luxury resource harvested and have met at least one other Civ. Sell them the resource. Use the money along with your savings to buy a Library in the capital and enter into a RA with them. After that Library is bought you will spend all of your money, every coin, on RAs until you know you have enough techs to build Cristo Redentor, which will happen if everything goes perfectly around turn 200. After that, all of your money will be used to buy any Cultural City States on the map. As soon as the Library is bought build the National College.

With your first RA the target is Civil Service. Not because it's an important part of this strategy, it's just an expensive early tech that you want to get out of the way. After completing Animal Husbandry and Trapping, sink a turn of research into the other available techs except CS. Then set to research Theology. As soon as Theology is researched build Angkor Wat (production focus). You'll be surprised that you almost always get it. This helps with border expansion, although you don't truly need a lot of land, but you really want it for it's additional GE generation point.

Education-Chivalry-Acoustics Slingshot

Spoiler :

Hopefully you'll have met at least three Civs by now. With these three Civ research partners you will perform two crucial 3-tech slingshots. The first is the Acoustics Shot. The purpose of this slingshot is to build the Sistine Chapel with your first GE.

Around the time that you're finishing Theology enter into a RA with each of these civs on the same turn. Then tech through the requirement techs for Chivalry, ending in Currency. Make sure all other tech paths are blocked off and make sure you know exactly what turn the RA is due to expire (30 turns from signing) so you can be ready. If you've not made a mistake then 30 turns from signing the agreements you will receive Education - Chivalry - Acoustics. Your first GE will be born around this turn (sometimes even on this exact turn for a delicious feeling of plan-coming-togetherness). Build the SC. This increases your capitals culture output by 33%. Well done!

The Astronomy - Navigation - Archaeology Slingshot

Spoiler :

When the RA expire for the last slingshot, renew them immediately. Take note of when they will expire and get ready to perform the Archaeology shot. The purpose of this slingshot is to build the Louvre in your capital with your second GE and to provide early access to the powerful Hermitage National Wonder.

At the bottom of the Tech Tree beeline to Metal Casting. As soon as it's complete build a workshop and station an Engineer Specialist. Ensure that no other specialists are working. This specialist, along with Angkor Wat and the Garden, which you should build if you can, will generate another timely GE that you will use to build the Louvre.

After MC research Optics - Compass. Then block all the other available techs, by completing up to 33% of the required research, other than Astronomy. Don't forget Banking! If you've not made any mistakes exactly 30 turns after your first slingshot you will receive Astronomy - Navigation - Archaeology. Use the GE to build the Louvre, and build two Landmarks with the Great Artists (GA). Lock these tiles to work for the rest of the game. Build the Hermitage immediately.

The Race for Cristo Redenter

Spoiler :

From here the race is on to build Cristo Redentor before the AI does. It isn't easy. If you fail to build it you will likely lose, you just won't be able to even finish 5 SP trees, let alone build the Utopia Project, before someone launches a spaceship. The specifics of how best to do it will be different every game. It all depends on how many Civs you've met and how many RAs you can fund. Your goal is to research Telegraph and lastly Radio. They are the last and only techs you now need. After you have these it wouldn't matter if you generated 0 science for the rest of the game.

The techs to block the undesirable paths are Metallurgy, Fertilizer, Replaceable Parts, Railroad and Refrigeration. My advice is just to know how many RAs you have going and when they expire to best guide the path towards Telegraph.

There are 8 or 9 expensive techs that you need to get there. All of these, but one, will be researched via RAs. During this process pre-build Oxford University, which gives one free tech, to the point that it needs only one turn to finish. Complete the build as soon as Telegraph becomes available and use your third (and final) GE, who should be born by now, to build (most of) Cristo Redentor. This has reduced all future SPs buy 33%. Huge!

The final tech that you want is Radio. As soon as it's researched build a Broadcast Tower, this doubles the base culture of your capital and along with CR reducing the SP cost is enough to provide you with a Deity Culture Victory. After CR is built just max out culture in anyway you can, you should be pumping out over 300 per turn and for maybe a dozen SPs in a row they will be coming at one every 6 or 7 turns. Even the last SP you get, the most expensive, will be under 10 turns.

Social Policies

Spoiler :

***EDIT***
Your goal in the opening of the game is to build stonehenge. Post patch 2.17 this is only possible with satisfactory frequency by using the free GP from the Liberty tree as an engineer to build it in one turn. The two options are to take tradition as your first policy, then opening liberty, free worker, free gp. I would go this way if I found a culture ruin. If not perhaps it's best to simply take the first three policies in liberty, I'm not sure I haven't tested this. SP's I recommend to take are now liberty, tradition, freedom, piety, rationalism.
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As soon as Freedom is available open it. Once it is open take Constitution and Free Speech.

Other than that do as the game seems to require. The 5 SP trees that I take are Tradition - Piety - Freedom - Patronage - Commerce/Order.

Diplomacy

Spoiler :

You have two main goals regarding diplomacy.

1. Don't get into any wars, unless the action is far, far away and everyone else is in on it too.

2. Incite wars against anyone who you think is nearing a Science Victory.

The second goal is pretty straight forward stuff. If you see Gandhi building lots of spaceship parts then do whatever you can to bribe whoever you like to go and start a fight.

It's the first goal, not getting into any wars, that can be tricky. You are a weakling. You have no army. Don't even bother wasting your time with walls and castles. Any one of the Civs out there, if they get up the motivation, can wipe you off the map and there isn't a thing you can do about it. Get used to this idea.

The main big decision is if to enter into a public declaration of friendship (DoF) with an early neighbor, or not. One of the main ways you can lose playing this way is if your neighbor just decides he wants your land. A DoF makes if very unlikely, as long as you're a good boy, that this Civ will declare war (DoW) on you. The bad side is that any Civ that becomes the enemy of your friend will dislike that you've Dof'd with them. I think sometimes it's a good idea and sometimes it's not. If there is one massive Civ on my continent and they want to be friends then I usually go for it. If it's heavily populated and there's some aggressive Civ's out there then I usually don't.

It's important to monitor the Civs attitude towards you, especially your neighbors so you can predict if they're preparing for war against you. If you can see that they are, you need to direct their attention elsewhere.

Happily, in my experience, once the first third of the game is over this becomes less of a problem. Every Civ will be your BFF and even though wars are going on all around you (some of them of your making), no one would even think about harming a hair on your head. I think it has something to do with not settling any additional cities and trading with everyone for all time. Normally disagreeable leaders, like Montezuma, will be bending over backwards for you. In one game Monty attacked one of my allied cultural city states three times. And three times I went and asked him what he wanted to declare peace with that city state and three times he just did it for nothing. What a guy!

Once those tasks are completed there's nothing left to do but build that pink spaceship the Utopia Project. By this time multiple other Civs will be breathing down your neck building spaceship parts left, right and center. If everything happens just right then the game can finish around the end of the 18th Century on standard speed and you possibly will not have been involved in a violent action of any kind. You have just won a Super Capital Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory!

I hope you enjoy a different style of Civ 5 game, even though it's only one city it definitely has a 'builder' feel to it. This is a style designed for Immortal/Deity. On lower levels there is no need to go through such elaborate methods in order to secure the key wonders. You can just build them as normal. On Deity they go fast, so you will be under pressure to reach your landmark points the entire game racing against the AI. This relieves a lot of the nexturnitits that typify culture wins in Civ 5. I'd be interested to hear any suggestions on improvements or feel free to point out any mistakes that I've made if you spot any.

Thanks for reading.

Snarzberry : )

 

[Monthar]

Nice write-up.

 

[JohnnyW]

Why not slingshot the 2 free policies into Freedom when it unlocks? That will get you -25% culture cost for the rest of the game. It shouldn't matter if they are your 9th and 10th SPs or your 49th and 50th - You will only be studying X policies where X = 50-your freebies (in case you got the Oracle or the Sydney Opera House somehow). Getting those free policies won't increase the price of the next one you must buy, so why not reduce their cost earlier with the slingshot?

At least, that's what I do.

Do you just tech too fast to get that low in Piety before you unlock Freedom? My gut says no since you get SH and stay at 1 city.

 

[Monthar]

Why not slingshot the 2 free policies into Freedom when it unlocks? That will get you -25% culture cost for the rest of the game. It shouldn't matter if they are your 9th and 10th SPs or your 49th and 50th - You will only be studying X policies where X = 50-your freebies (in case you got the Oracle or the Sydney Opera House somehow). Getting those free policies won't increase the price of the next one you must buy, so why not reduce their cost earlier with the slingshot?

At least, that's what I do.

Do you just tech too fast to get that low in Piety before you unlock Freedom? My gut says no since you get SH and stay at 1 city.

That's what I'd do too. I just forgot to mention it in my previous post. Of course I've only had about 1 1/2 hrs sleep in the last 30 hours.

 

[snarzberry]

Yeah JohnnyW it's because the acoustics sling shot gets you into the renaissance so quickly that you've only had time to open piety and take one policy by the time freedom is available. Free religion comes as fast either way, you get it when you've accrued enough points for 9 policies. But my way the last 2 policies are free.

 

[JohnnyW]

Yeah JohnnyW it's because the acoustics sling shot gets you into the renaissance so quickly that you've only had time to open piety and take one policy by the time freedom is available. Free religion comes as fast either way, you get it when you've accrued enough points for 9 policies. But my way the last 2 policies are free.

Okay. It's been a long time since I played Deity, and even longer since I tried a OCC. In my cultural games I usually expand to 4 or 5 cities for better base science and production, which I find necessary in my playstyle.

I was unaware you could tech so quickly, but on deity the AI never have gold shortages for selling resources or RAs, so I should not have assumed it was impossible!

Well done.

 

[DaveMcW]

Switch into Rationalism during the Cristo Redentor rush to grab the two free techs.

You can use 6 pairs of anarchy to complete the Rationalism tree, that is only 6 turns without Mandate of Heaven.

Anarchy stops all gold, science, and hammer production. It does NOT stop culture, growth, and GPs, which are all you care about anyway.

 

[snarzberry]

DaveMcW - great idea, I'll give that a try and see if it's more efficient.

 

[DaveMcW]

Run a scientist in your university, and time it so he pops the same turn as your 3rd GE.

Future GP costs increase to 500, but you get the GE and GS for 300.

 

[snarzberry]

I wonder for how long we're going to be able to pull of the double GP pop, it seems that it should be a bug but it's made it this far without being fixed, so who knows?

 

[begosh]

Hello,

possible to get a save game to look at to understand some of the concepts that aren't directly worded so to say.

/J

 

[biohazard72]

Very cool! I have indeed been waiting for someone to do Deity Cultural. I may give this a go if I decide to play Civ5 again in the near future.

I presume after building Broadcast Tower you run max Artist specialists? Do you pop a Great Artist in time for the end of the game? In time for the landmark culture to matter, or is it best served for a Golden Age to finish up Utopia Project?

 

[snarzberry]

Hello,

possible to get a save game to look at to understand some of the concepts that aren't directly worded so to say.

/J

Hi, sure no problem. This is the only game I have saved at multiple spots of importance, and unfortunately it's not a very good example because it involves such a lucky start. But I'll post a save from the beginning, middle and end and it should still be of some assistance.

 

[begosh]

I've had problems with the RAs. What happen is that I get the wrong tech. I have researched about >25% in all the techs I don't want, and then I still get on that I don't want.

Anyone have the same experience?

At what turn should I be finished with the Radio and the Christo, aproximately.

/J

 

[Michl2602]

Many thanks for all those ideas here. But some of the ideas I can't fully understand, cause I don't understand all those abbreviations in use (which is made worse by German being my mother language (and also my language in the game), so that sometimes I've to look up even the full names).

Is there any list of common abbreviations around (hoping, that you guys all use the same ones?!)?

 

[snarzberry]

Very cool! I have indeed been waiting for someone to do Deity Cultural. I may give this a go if I decide to play Civ5 again in the near future.

I presume after building Broadcast Tower you run max Artist specialists? Do you pop a Great Artist in time for the end of the game? In time for the landmark culture to matter, or is it best served for a Golden Age to finish up Utopia Project?

After the Broadcast tower you have the decision to build an additional landmark with your first one or two GAartists or to save them for GAges, as you say, when building Utopia. You want two back to back GAges to finish Utopia as quickly as possible. So if I can tell that I'll pop 2 more during the rest of the game, or if I've just recently unlocked the patronage policy that will gift me a great person sooner or later to make up for one of them, then I'll still build a landmark quite late in the game. What else are you going to do with it?

Often there are 50 turns left in the game at that point, maybe more. The 4 culture from the landmark gets three 100% bonuses from Broadcast Tower, Hermitage and the Freedom SP. So that's approx 800 culture over the rest of the game which is something like three turns it's saving you. Meh. It could be the difference at the end of it all.

 

[snarzberry]

Many thanks for all those ideas here. But some of the ideas I can't fully understand, cause I don't understand all those abbreviations in use (which is made worse by German being my mother language (and also my language in the game), so that sometimes I've to look up even the full names).

Is there any list of common abbreviations around (hoping, that you guys all use the same ones?!)?

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/acronyms.php

There you go.

 

[Wreck]

snarz - thanks for an excellent post. I was formerly unaware of the ability to guide RAs; now I know how and it is really even more absurd than they already were.

I got my first diety win with this last night. (And I never did win Civ4 at diety, except playing Incas in a tiny!) Played Arabia, for the nearly doubled income. It's quite easy to get to be BFFs with most CivV civs. Japan started near me, and went on to dominate half the map, killing Siam, England, and all the mainland assets of Songhai. But those kills came after my tech run, so they didn't matter. Nobody built any spaceship part, though they were in the future tech zone. Japan built the UN, and two votes happened before I could complete the Utopia Project. Both votes were split, and would have been even if I had not had a few allies.

You should tweak your guide on how to block techs -- it's not a single turn of investment any more. It's 25% more than the minimum (usually min is zero). (Anyone not understanding this should read the thread Research Agreement Blocking.) Also, the newbie should be aware that sometimes you'll be forced to invest tech "uselessly" into a tech you'll be getting via RA; this is OK. Just be sure to keep the total investment into each tech you don't want at least 25% above any tech you do want. Also, try to keep investment into unwanted techs below 75%; apparently there is a feature where there is a chance of completing a tech that is not 100% completed, so long as you are above 75% and investing more in it. (This has burned me more than once until I wised up to it.)

I think doing a worker steal from a city-state is a clear improvement on your plan. So one would build a scout first, then monument, then SH as soon as Calendar completes. Not only does this likely get you another ruins or two, but it finds more stuff faster, including that worker. Although the diety AIs usually spread close to you fast, you'll probably still need to keep your warrior around for the first bit of the game to deal with barbs.

In the midgame, Fertilizer is an fairly useful tech to get if you don't have a river. If you do have a river, then as you say in the guide you don't need it and can block there.

It is amazing how little tech capacity you need. A library and the National College are all you need to get through the lower part of the tech tree on your own, and then block off techs. Beyond that, there is no need for tech. So, even a university is rather optional; a public school gives culture so it's worth building on that basis. But after your tech is done, you really can shut it down. Sell off your library, university, maybe even the public school. They cost maintenance, and you can usually get better value for your gold in other ways.

After tech is done, to max out culture you should run Artist specialists (two each from your museum and temple). You can also buy up cultural city-states, and max out happiness. You don't need money much at this point, because you don't need any more RAs. So, you should keep one of each your own resources (for happiness), and even buy resources from city-states or even an AI. An extra +5 happiness, over 30 turns, gets you 300 culture -- so it's one turn saved. Not much, but what else can you do with money?

 

[snarzberry]

Thanks for your reply Wreck and I'm glad you were able to pull it off successfully.

As to your suggestions. About the worker stealing, it's something that I didn't add into the guide but is something I do with my initial warrior when the opportunity presents itself. The problem, as I see it, with changing the start build order from monument-worker to scout-monument is the difference that your hard-built worker can make in the construction speed of SH and the fact that you won't get Aristocracy while building SH. You will still win the race to SH some of the time, but significantly less.

CS don't get their first worker out in time for you to steal it and then have that worker speed up the build. So much rests on the building of this wonder and players will already have to quit or play on with a different plan in mind a fair portion of the time so I'm not sure about adjusting the best approach in such a way that lowers the probability of SH being built. But you're right that if you did it your way the times when you did win the race to SH you'll be in a better position.

I intended at one stage to play a game for laughs where I just gambled on SH and built monument-granary, stole a worker with my warrior and play out the rest of the game just so I could say that I beat deity without building any units, which I thought would be pretty funny.

But having a stolen worker as a buddy to your first is a good thing and is something I did probably about half the time I played this way. But I don't think it's a crucial part of the scheme and this is more just a skeleton blueprint which is missing many small details.

Since writing this post I changed the way I went about SP's and GP and improved the results quite a lot. Thanks to DaveMcW and others for excellent ideas.

Now I take Rationalism for the two free techs and with Great People instead of producing three GE's in a row I make two GE's then one GS (for a free tech, which does make the university a must-build for me) and then the final GE before as many GA's as you like.

You're right about how amazing it is that you need so few self-made beakers to win this way. Also, if you follow the revised way, you're getting two techs from Rationalism, one tech from a GS and one tech from Oxford University during the push for Redentor. That's your last 4 techs completed and only leaves you with about maybe 5 or 6 that you want RA's for after the initial 7 (Civil Service and the two slingshots). This significantly cuts down on how much gold you need to produce, so in fact you don't really need to produce much of anything.

Good choice on picking Arabia, I think overall they are the best for this game.

 

[snarzberry]

I've had problems with the RAs. What happen is that I get the wrong tech. I have researched about >25% in all the techs I don't want, and then I still get on that I don't want.

Anyone have the same experience?

At what turn should I be finished with the Radio and the Christo, aproximately.

/J

Sometimes the tech you get from an RA isn't what you want, it happens. Just keep playing and make the best of it. Playing as Arabia you'll have more money than the other civs due to your double resources and you could if you like spend some of this money on 'insurance' RA's that give you an extra shot if one of your initial RA's misfires.

As for redentor and radio - your goal should be before about turn 220 for redentor. I've only ever built it before turn 200 once, and that was turn 199, with the mother of all lucky starts. In my experience the AI usually builds it around turn 200 - 230.