Deity Advice

[Yzman]

Ok I have beaten emperor about 3 times and I want to try deity. I need some advice and what my build order should be, when is the best time to war etc. On emperor I would ususally rush for the great library and get it and be set for techs the rest of the game. I have a feeling that this wont work on deity and the slower expansion because of the wonder building might hurt me too much. What is also the easiet way to win on deity? Can someone post a basis of what they do on their first few turns and maybe what their general stategy is? Also what civ you use etc.

 

[ADLOTS]

ive been playing deity as well recently... all i can say is science 0%.

u dont have a very high chance of getting any wonder... even the great library...

war - not a good idea until the middle ages... possible late into the middle ages...

only once u have infrastructure and are ready to just have military units produced, should u start a war...



You have ot contact the AI almost every turn, every 2nd or 3rd turn. Prices for techs will be massive and you can only trade if ur tax is at 100%.

 

[Yndy]

Having played several deity games I can say that initial moves are not standard and depend a lot on the situation. You must avoid combat at the beginning but not necessarily wait until the middle ages to start a war. I have had problems with research all the time and in my last game I was on 0% science from the beginning till Industrial ages. The first science I researched was steam power.

Starting with the 0% science strategy from the beginning saves you the trouble of building libraries and universities. I have build most of the libraries and all of my universities after the factories.

Easiest civs to use IMHO are Persia and Iroquis if taking advantage of the UU to attack at least one AI.

Easiest method of victory is diplo victory if you master the technique required for one. Still some bad luck can ruin this in a second and then you're scre*ed.

 

[SkyRattlers]

More deity advice would be great!

Specific questions I have are on what map style creates the easiest conditions to work with?

Pangea, so that the AI has to worry about the other AIs and can ignore you? Also easier to make contact and trade for techs more quickly?

Archipalagos? Is isolation a death sentence since you can't even talk to the AI and therefore can't buy techs?

Any thoughts?

 

[Rammstein]

Is there any difference as to the warfare itself when playing Deity (that's right, I haven't even dared to try). In Civ2 there was a significant level effect to how the indivual battles went. Will battles be harder in Deity?

 

[Gothmog]

Depends alot on the situation but in general Pangea is best so you can get contacts and play the AI off each other. Archipalagos are no death sentence, they can give you time to develop and possibly broker tech between civs without contact. Smaller maps can be easier because you only need 4-6 cities at the beginning to stay in the game, but if you get a good position on a large map that is also an advantage. If you want to play Diety and have it be a little easier try using less than the suggested # of civs, that will give you a little elbow room.

Sometimes it can work to research one or two techs at the very beginning, before all contacts are made and no one has libraries yet. You may need BW just to survive for example and Pottery can be a must as well, also you should be able to trade it if not all the other civs have contacted each other. The same goes a little later, min research or a lone scientist on a tech neglected by the AI can give great rewards (Math, or Poly). In PTW the monopoly tech price is huge. I usually only go 0% science if I am well behind in tech and know I will be behind for a while.

Don't worry about early wonders, often ToE is the first one I get. Better to concentrate on early growth and infrastructure.

Really on Diety you have to play the hand you are delt. Make the best of whatever advantages you have. Most of all don't worry about falling behind, you can make up ground later.

Edit: Ram - battles are the same but the AI now gets his units much cheaper than you so you need to win a higher proportion of battles.

 

[Yndy]

I'd say Pangaea but use expansionist civ to use the trait at best.

Continents and Archipelago are risky. If you are lucky enough to be on the largest landmass with most civs then it's OK or even easier. If you are alone and far from others, they'll come with tanks just as you discover the pikes. Archipelago, Continents allow you to defend better in wars as the AI is not good at invading other continents.

 

[WildFire]

I believe that the one wonder that you have to get on diety is the Theory of Evolution becuase it helps to much to jump ahead of the AI in techs and then trade some for lots of gpt.

 

[Minmaster]

well let me tell you, i play exclusively diety and it involves a lot of luck. try to go for a lot of luxuries and strategic resources, because it becomes the best trading leverage tool for humans. also, try to stay out of wars early on, except if one civ is getting hammered by another AI(s) and you want to jump in and join to grab some land. early on, its expansion, expansion, expansion, and building some culture. set research at 20% to start, then move down to 10% so that you are still researching, making it cheaper to buy techs that you are researching. later on, move it to 0% and use 1 scientist in any city to keep research going.

you have to face the fact that most of the diety games will end up being too hard to make a comback when you are too behind. me, i will win maybe one out of six or seven games that i play past ancient age. it seems to me it makes a world of difference having a super-food tile at start so that you can somewhat contain AI's rapid expansion. try building extra warriors to block AI settlers back and forth between few tiles, as i have just started doing this and it helps a little getting some cities that AI would have gotten otherwise.

give up on most wonders early on, as it will be almost impossible to outbuild AI in wonders without leaders. and try to get at least one leader, by using your elites at the right time every war. try to go to war with other civs aiding you, if you can. dont sign MPP too much because it will get you into too many wars.

this said, i think winning diety comes down to a handful of critical moves and a whole lot of luck. my last game, i was doomed as egypt, surrounded by 4 AIs in the same small continent. however, i took the chance and went after the smallest AI civ in Greece in ancient age, even though they have the dreaded hoplites. with mass war chariots/horsies, i managed to get a leader out of the war, allowing me to rush the great library that saved the whole game. from there on, i was right back in it and it allowed me to build units on par with other AIs, allowing me to take over the rest of the continent eventually.

if you make it to industrial age and ur still in it, then you have a good chance. i just started using spy/embassies to steal techs and i like it. in the modern age, i'd rather steal techs even if i have to pay a lot using "carefully" because i want to deny the AI the money they would get if i traded for it.

so basically, in my opinion, these factors are the most important in winning diety.

1. starting with a super-food tile.
2. having enough land on ur continent to have a decent # of cities.
3. rapid expansion to keep up with AI.
4. getting leaders to rush crucial wonders
5. getting good # of different luxuries and resources to trade with AI for techs.
6. extorting techs out of badly beaten AIs.
7. getting early contacts with as many civs as possible to trade techs, resources/luxuries.
8. staying out of wars until you are ready. sneak attacks by AI can ruin your game easily, so try to stack up on units and guard your borders. also have a lot of units even if u dont need them at the time, as AI will constantly threaten you if you have weak military

 

[Gothmog]

Minmaster: well said. I play exclusively Diety too and I win most of my games. I still think you shouldn't worry too much about being behind. You can come back, check out the SG RBE-2 for a nice example. Also I think a well located FP built as early as possible is key (if I get a leader early that is where it goes).

 

[Minmaster]

yea i forgot to mention getting FP asap. however, if you miss out on getting FP early and/or you hold back on building it (because your empire is too small or you cant afford to build it w/o a leader), then try working upto communism quickly so that all cities will have similar corruption. i recently started using communism and ditched the FP alltogether and i must say i am happy with the results im getting. communisum's equal corruption can make far away cities pretty productive. and i like how communisum's espionage is more successful than other gov't which is big deal for me as i said i started to do a lot of spywork. i also like no war weariness with communism. however i dont like how you have to sacrifice population to hurry.

about being behind, there is a point where if u are too behind, it is almost impossible to make an comback. especially if one civ is dominating in culture, because there is only 2 or 3 civs left, then that one civ will eventually win cultural victory (usually because all the ancient wonders that we let the AI build that accumulates so much culture). so i guess another point i should have added to my previous list is: dont let one civ get too powerful. watch the wonders list and if a lot of ownders are owned by one civ, then you need to do something about it because they might win culturally.

 

[Gothmog]

I agree with: don't let one civ get too powerful. That can be a problem. I define too powerful as more than twice as powerful as anyone else in the game. If someone gets there then my main mission becomes taking them down a peg. If it is two powerful civs then you can play them off each other and you don't have to worry about cultural victory because it's at least 100000 and twice the next civs culture value for a culture victory. I have found that many people quit too early, the AI is not good at closing the deal.

Also if your empire is large enough to build the FP then you will reap large benefits from the FP. Many people make the mistake of thinking the FP is only good far from the capital. Actually, in the absence of leaders, the second ring is a good place for it because you can build it in a reasonable amount of time. Even the first ring is worth it.

I use steal technology alot later in the game too, I would rather pay my spy than pay my rival. Of course only do this if you can handle the possible consequences.

 

[SkyRattlers]

Using the tips above I started a diety game last night that I think probably went well enough to begin that a better player than me would have easily be able to win.

I chose the English (turned out to be a mistake) because I wanted an expansionist/commercial Civ. I figured that my best chance for keeping up in tech would be to find alot of early tech huts and then use the money I'd be making (and saving because I don't have to purchase anything I find in a hut) to purchase the techs when the huts ran out.

I got placed on a very large continent with only Rome. I had 2 cows close and then 2 more cows for my second city. This allowed me to expand very quickly and I was almost able to keep pace. I got to 10 cities before running out of room.

My three main difficulties....
1) the continent is not yet full but I am separated by a swatch of Roman land atleast 2 cities thick. Difficult to get settlers over there and hard to maintain them so far from my main area. But allowing Rome the freedom to settle another 6-8 cities could be fatal.
2) The expansionist trait proved useless, I forgot to allow barbs...therefore no huts. Almost restarted because of this but things were going too well. Would have been so nice to have a militaritic trait right now. Could go to war and destroy their capital and major cities surrounding. They are right near my border with no ring of protecting cities. Could cripple Rome beyond hope of recovery which would leave me with the entire massive continent to myself (assuming I could settle it fast enough)
3) No contact with any other civs yet. I suspect the other civs are on separated continents as well. Very few wonders being built. And being built much later than i've seen in other diety games. Tech discovery has thus been much slower than normal and Rome and I might actually be ahead of most civs because we atleast had each other to trade with.

I'll get farther than I ever have before I'm sure. But if i can't beat down Rome soon they'll just get too powerful. Wish I had a UU that could actually help me.

 

[Gothmog]

England without getting anything from the expansionist bonus is one of the (if not the) weakest civs as their UU sucks and it is hard to get them into a GA.

My advice: jump on Rome before they get Legions and start their GA. Do they have IW yet? if not attack now! Go with archers and spears, or horses if you have them. If they have it, how long have they had it and where is their Iron? If they haven't hooked that Iron up, attack now. If they have Iron hooked up but not for long now, go pillage the Iron and attack. If they have had IW and Iron for a while (like 5 turns), you are going to have to hope they don't come for you! Rome is notoriously bad at building infrastructure so don't worry too much if they have more cities than you. Worry more about their effective UU combined with their GA.

 

[Minmaster]

although english UU sucks, it might be a blessing in that it comes later in the game. use this to your advantage and wait for the right time to trigger GA (if you havent already) by looking for weak enemy ships like galleys when you do go into war. sometimes it helps when you build your UU and hold off using them until later when you are ready for a more profitable GA. even if that UU becomes outdated, just look for a badly damaged enemy unit to attack, and hope that your UU will win the battle to trigger the GA. for example, i built several jag warriors as aztecs but did not use them against any AI civs until i reached monarchy and picked off a red-lined enemy unit in the middle age, thus triggering the GA at a more desired time.

 

[Ronald]

Building the FP early on as mentioned earlier seem a good choice. You also have to spend a lot of time on the diplomatic screen to catch every possibility to trade. Luxuries and resources trrading with far away civs is a good option.
To keep pace in late ancient times and early middle ages, a well timed early golden age can get you out of the worst troubles.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Set science to 0%, or at just 10% if you want to try and get a tech the AI avoids, or is slow at getting. Later, you may want to run 1 scientist to do your research (don't forget about him!). Since you have 90-100% of your income going towards treasury (and some lux tax), you will save up money. Use the money to buy techs. Try and meet as many civs as possible before buying and buy when everyone else already knows the tech, so you can get the techs cheaply. Or if you have contact with Civ A, that Civ B doesn't know, you can try buying Tech A from one Civ, trading it to the other civ for Tech B and then selling Tech B back to the first civ.

Since you have so much money built up, you can also use this for massive upgrades (warrior-swordsmen for example) to wage an early offensive against an AI to get cities/techs, capture wonders, get leaders, etc. You want a stack of at least 10 swordsmen (with reinforcements continually pouring in) for your first offensive. Grab a city or two, sign peace. Rinse and repeat.

Granaries. Knowing when to build them. With the right starting location, your capital can spit out settlers every 4 turns if it has a granary. Whether you build a granary before your first settler depends on your start and how much room you have to expand. The larger the map, with fewer civs, the more important an early granary will be.

Once you get a large chunk of territory, build up your infrastructure and get tech parity, you can start researching on your own (max science). This was at the beginning of the industrial age in my first Deity game.

 

[ADLOTS]

try playing harder deity games as well... the harder a game, the easier a lower difficulty level....

so if u did something difficult like this months GOTM it would be good practice...


In this GOTM - GOTM #14, it was babylon with culturally linked starting locatiosn on deity...

that ensured, that one of the harder early civs to play, was next to one of the hardest opponenets - persia...

*SPOILERS FOR GOTM #14 *

Even though it was pangea, you were on a small island, and with only one oponent on the island and that oponent being persia, it was quite hard...



Soem other things you could do is make every map property random and play raging barbarians, this way you may end up having bad terrain, or terrain that isnt perfect for deity.

Also 80% water and continents or 60% water and arc. would ensure only a few oponenets near u.

You also want a really aggressive neigbouring civ so culturally linked starting locations, and a civ like babylon is a good idea.


This is the best way to get practice, by making things harder... or you could modify deity and make it harder like in the RBD games in the succession forum...