Beating deity on archipelago

[alexti2]

Didn't I mention importance of the Great Lighthouse? From the early to the mid-game, trade routes are about 50% of your overall income. No surprises my science slider is around 50% too

 

[Zombie69]

Fin+spiritual - probably the worst combo. No anarchy is nice, but I change civics only few times. And I don't have a religion until much later, when the cost of a temple is not a problem. Maybe if you decide to go for cultural win and try to rush to religions it will work better.

What has religion got to do with it? That civ doesn't even start with mysticism. I think it would work very well in your strategy, allowing you to go from military civics in times of war to peaceful ones in peace time. You should give it a try.

 

[StupidMe]

If you can beat archipelago, continents should be no big problem for you. Do you have a reliable standard 7 players continent strategy that you can post in a separate thread.
Also, do you play multiplayer and what's your strategy for that.
First post

 

[alexti2]

What has religion got to do with it? That civ doesn't even start with mysticism. I think it would work very well in your strategy, allowing you to go from military civics in times of war to peaceful ones in peace time. You should give it a try.

You can't switch civics back and forth even with spiritual, there's some waiting period. And anyway, I don't see what civics I would want to switch. Whole game is kind of a race condition and after the initial development you never stop producing military units.

But if you're going cultural path and religion race you will be able to build temples early, so you'll extract some benefits out of spiritual trait.

 

[alexti2]

If you can beat archipelago, continents should be no big problem for you. Do you have a reliable standard 7 players continent strategy that you can post in a separate thread.

Nope. Archipelago may work on smallish contintents map, because you're likely to end up alone on a small continent. But on standard map you'd get AI neighbour and my strategy doesn't allow for any significant land force early on. Besides, it's unclear what to do if you don't get any of (iron,copper,horser). Perhaps, I should try to think of something for continents, but my initial impression that continents on standard+ map are going to be harder to win reliably.

Also, do you play multiplayer and what's your strategy for that.
First post

My multiplayer strategy is to play Dominions 2

 

[Zombie69]

You can't switch civics back and forth even with spiritual, there's some waiting period. And anyway, I don't see what civics I would want to switch. Whole game is kind of a race condition and after the initial development you never stop producing military units.

But if you're going cultural path and religion race you will be able to build temples early, so you'll extract some benefits out of spiritual trait.

The point is, with spiritual you could build barracks in a few more cities, and instead of producing units constantly in 2 cities (for example), you could produce units half the time in 4 cities. Whenever you're in production mode, you go for police state, vassalage and theocracy. When you're done making them, you go back to less costly and more generally useful civics. You'll want to spend more than 5 turns in each state anyway, so the turn limit shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe it's my limitted experience, but it seems to me that spiritual is a great trait for someone who wants a few wars interspaced by peaceful periods, like you described.

 

[Tauro]

Tried on Monarch, I had no horses and NO forests and river at all (I misses 3 gorges for this reason, even with a useless ingeneer...). SS victory in a small map, with my super capital with 14 wonders
A baby game compared to deity...
I'm approching do emperor...

A baby game compared to deity :9

 

[PanzerEric]

Good luck with this game . I opened your download file and noticed Caesar lurking uncomforatble close. Have you already won this game or is it still in-progress? As a longtime lurker, I always appreciate people who put their ideas and strategy out for others to study. Thanks for sharing this strategy as I'm not sure if anyone has posted a Diety win yet on the forums. Has anyone seen or heard of a Diety win yet, other than the Firaxis developers?

 

[alexti2]

Good luck with this game . I opened your download file and noticed Caesar lurking uncomforatble close. Have you already won this game or is it still in-progress?

Actually, we're at war in that savegame. Not everything is always going as planned, but the key is to keep fighting You never get comfortable Deity wins. In that war Caesar brought more galleys than I've expected and sunk most of my fleet. I had to buy peace with him. Some time later, while I was trying to rebuild my fleet, Greeks has attacked and I had to buy peace again. I haven't achieved naval dominance until frigates. Luckily, I had iron, so I wasn't too much concerned about invasion. Eventually I've conquered English and Romans, became biggest and baddest and concluded the game won.

As a longtime lurker, I always appreciate people who put their ideas and strategy out for others to study. Thanks for sharing this strategy as I'm not sure if anyone has posted a Diety win yet on the forums. Has anyone seen or heard of a Diety win yet, other than the Firaxis developers?

There were plenty of people winning on smallish Pangaeas - it's relatively easy (with a reasonably lucky start).

 

[alexti2]

The point is, with spiritual you could build barracks in a few more cities, and instead of producing units constantly in 2 cities (for example), you could produce units half the time in 4 cities. Whenever you're in production mode, you go for police state, vassalage and theocracy. When you're done making them, you go back to less costly and more generally useful civics. You'll want to spend more than 5 turns in each state anyway, so the turn limit shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe it's my limitted experience, but it seems to me that spiritual is a great trait for someone who wants a few wars interspaced by peaceful periods, like you described.

Many of those commerical cities have production base of 1 or 2-3. There isn't anything that can turn them into production centers. So it's hard to have many military producing cities. And what those cities would be doing when not building military? I squeeze in few important improvements here and there, but they have much faster production rate than my research. Besides, if I can have 4 production centers, what would be a disadvantage of building military in all of them continously?

Anyway, I'm not trying to discourage you from trying spiritual, it doesn't fit into the way I play it, but perhaps some things can modified to take better advantage of spiritual.

 

[alexti2]

Few more notes after playing with 1.52... Even more emphasis on choosing your enemies. AI has started to build stronger navy and defend their home islands better. Aside of building bigger navy yourself, I've noticed that you can always get somebody to fight on your side. It's pretty good idea, even if it's costly, because your ally will engage opposition's fleet while you'll be travelling in big groups defending your cargo ships and quickly taking the cities. I think that's cheaper way than to maintain larger navy and lose your ships. Of course, it's not always possible, but it's something good to keep in mind and plan for it, by cultivating some ally. So far Tokugawa is my favourite for that, because he builds really good navy. In my last game he was pretty good at smashing my enemy fleets

 

[obsolete]

Thanks for sharing this strategy as I'm not sure if anyone has posted a Diety win yet on the forums. Has anyone seen or heard of a Diety win yet, other than the Firaxis developers?

I have beaten deity pretty consistant. I highly doubt it's as rare as some people may think.

 

[alexti2]

I would imagine there's a lot of people who beat deity but who don't go to these forums

 

[Bezhukov]

I find drafting Rifles via Nationalism to be an invaluable tactic for (generally shield-poor) archi maps, as is, of course, slavery.

 

[mutax2003]

I have beaten deity pretty consistant. I highly doubt it's as rare as some people may think.

What is your general strategy for winnning on standard continent setup on deity?

 

[walkerjks]

Thanks for the thread. It gave me the inspiration to win a couple of cultural games on deity. To win completely peacefully, you need to handicap the AI as much as possible. For me, that meant setting sea level to high and using the tiny islands setting. Nobody ends up with any land to speak of, so the key is The Great Lighthouse for commerce and grabbing any city spots with 2 or more food resources (generally seafood) to use as great people cities. Slavery is great for early production due to the high excess food.

 

[alexti2]

Thanks for the thread. It gave me the inspiration to win a couple of cultural games on deity. To win completely peacefully, you need to handicap the AI as much as possible. For me, that meant setting sea level to high and using the tiny islands setting. Nobody ends up with any land to speak of, so the key is The Great Lighthouse for commerce and grabbing any city spots with 2 or more food resources (generally seafood) to use as great people cities. Slavery is great for early production due to the high excess food.

Nice! Now I know for the fact that cultural method is possible here. I have never managed to do it myself

 

[sandman_civ]

I have beaten deity pretty consistant. I highly doubt it's as rare as some people may think.

Have you beaten Deity with the standard settings ie. standard size map, continents, 6 other random civs, normal speed? If so please share some savegames as I cannot fathom how this can be done, the last time I survived the AI built spaceship in the 1600's. Also, how do we know if half of these deity winners don't use the world builder (not that I'm accusing anyone)?

 

[friskymike]

Obsolete is all talk. I've seen at least half dozen posts by him talking about how easy this is, easy that is, how he can beat diety etc. but he never has anything to back it up.
Of course I would love to be proved wrong by him and learn something int he process

 

[walkerjks]

Have you beaten Deity with the standard settings ie. standard size map, continents, 6 other random civs, normal speed? If so please share some savegames as I cannot fathom how this can be done, the last time I survived the AI built spaceship in the 1600's. Also, how do we know if half of these deity winners don't use the world builder (not that I'm accusing anyone)?

Hopefully we'll see some of these games in the Hall of Fame. Mine have been accepted, so they should be visible around the 10th.

To solve the spaceship problem, I gamed the world builder to produce a late spaceship by using a tiny archipelago map with high seas and tiny islands. I use 2 AI opponents. This does the following:

1) Limits the collaborative research since only 2 AIs are active. Usually one gets behind the other, so very little trading occurs (though I trade with the lagger).

2) Limits the benefit of the AI second settler. The islands often aren't big enough for 2 cities.

3) Limits production. There are few hills and little land in general to support fast spaceship building.

4) No land = no cottages = slower tech growth.

This virtually guarantees the AI can't build before the 20th century. Of course, you have the same production and commerce issues.