Deity and Culture

[STMO]

I lost a Deity game (BNW-standard everything, 7 players) to China, who won a Cultural victory in turn 320. 10 turns later I would have won a Diplomatic victory (close race).
How is it possible to defend on Deity against Culture?
I try to avoid giving away Open Borders - but I wonder that maybe I should prioritize archaeologists much more. The Culture China ended up with was amazing, maybe twice number two (Japan).

 

[phillipwyllie]

War, war is the solution to every runaway.

If war's not your thing then you need to propose world's fair on the first vote and of course win it. Never ever give open borders and try not to have the same religion as the tourism runaway.

 

[Chum]

I lost a Deity game (BNW-standard everything, 7 players) to China, who won a Cultural victory in turn 320. 10 turns later I would have won a Diplomatic victory (close race).
How is it possible to defend on Deity against Culture?
I try to avoid giving away Open Borders - but I wonder that maybe I should prioritize archaeologists much more. The Culture China ended up with was amazing, maybe twice number two (Japan).

It's not the culture, it's the tourism.

And you defend with your own culture. So you do need to prioritize culture buildings quite a bit more, it's not really viable play to completely ignore all of the guilds/culture building lines.

 

[Sclb]

On deity, you need to try everything to ally as many culture CS as possible. It is more efficient to get culture CS than to get many culture buildings, since most of the culture buildings grant very little culture without great works, and you are limited in number of great works, and often it is simply better to bulb instead of making great works anyway.

 

[Redaxe]

You should declare war - even if you're not in a position to conquer.

This will kill any trade routes they have with you, close borders and prevent diplomats.

But its one of those things you need to keep an eye on so you can deal with early - i.e. are there any civs running away on tourism. As others have said its very hard to catch up culture if they have most of the cultural wonders.
Sistine chapel is good if you can get it. But on the whole cultural CSs are probably the best option.

 

[beetle]

How is it possible to defend on Deity against Culture?

Despite the replies: You can’t, not playing peaceful anyway. Not directly.

Unless you are going for CV yourself, your culture will never be enough to slow down a tourism runaway. And if you are going for CV, odds are good you will need to kill at least one civ for that to work.

It is kind of frustrating, because what you have to do is hope that there are two cultural runaways, and each prevents the other from winning while you work towards DiploVC or SV.

It is very unsatisfying to have to depend on your opponents to keep each other in check. Loosing by SV feels much more honest!

That said, my experience with the DCLs has taught me that you can really influence things. Even maps with a single cultural runaway that is not close to you can be managed -- if you identify the threat early enough. In your game, did you ever sign a DoF or RA with China? Was there never an opportunity to bribe someone to DoW her?

 

[IronfighterXXX]

How is it possible to defend on Deity against Culture?

Learn how to win reliably <250t on most maps, then you can sit and laugh at AIs trying to win CV

 

[Hans Tork]

T320-T330 on Deity is a bit slow. By that time AIs can win Science/Culture Victory. Try for SV in about T250-T270.(T280 being the last straw.)The only way to defend against CV AIs is warring and also befriending cultural city states.

One way to defeat CV AIs is making them backstab their allies. This will get them hated by all other Civs and they will declare war on him(maybe with little gpt bribes) and also push for embargoes against that Civ in WF. Also choosing Cultural Heritage sites or anything that increases AI culture may help. Still,the best solution is to win a SV quickll pre T300.

 

[MechMedic130]

I've won on Deity while I already had influential civs over me. I was playing as Venice, everyone hated me because I wouldn't turn Commie and I kept doing everything in the congress to impede them as much as I could (voting for Freedom as World Ideology won me zero friends, as did voting down the International Games that I knew I couldn't compete in). I had three civs at war with me and my trade routes were decimated, except for a couple to nearby city states that I could defend.

Thankfully I had taken some early game measures to prevent a disaster and financially supported a couple of wars, which even though it impeded me it prevented any of them from becoming a runaway civ and since they could get culture over me but not over each other I just road the storm to a diplomatic victory just in time to avoid a pincer of Siam and Japanese Armies from absolutely smashing Venice.

The lesson is not to worry so much about how well you are doing, but to use whatever resources you can to pit the powerful AI's against each other. Oh sure they might be crushing you, but if they can't crush each other then they can't win either. Just focus on one victory path and prevent anyone else from being able to achieve whatever they are aiming for. Huge military civ building up? Bribe some people into attacking them, even if they lose it'll slow them down. Huge culture civ? Help another Civ compete, that way they can never get that last civ that they need. Use whatever asset you have and make them fight each other.

 

[MechMedic130]

And let me say some of these civs WANT to go to war and will do it for almost nothing. I got Askia to cripple the Mongols for me and all it costed was 8 gold per turn for 30 turns. Kept the city states I needed alive and neutered the Mongols. Then I pitted the Japanese against Askia right after while his Army was still limping for a flat gold payment and some iron that I wasn't really using anyways. They want to fight, just encourage it to be against whoever you need crushed.

 

[lindsay40k]

Huge military civ building up? Bribe some people into attacking them, even if they lose it'll slow them down.

Every time I've ever tried this, I've ended up creating a monster as the military Civ loses most of their units but still captures two cities, and then replaces their losses so quickly the AIs demand even more to make a suicidal DOW that only serves to feed the monster. By the time I can farm enough XP to have a viable army for Plan B, they have twenty cities and a carpet of units, and even if I do manage to cull the horde it just takes one mistake for the line to break and I'm forced to negotiate peace, whereupon their platoon of GGs sets up a perimeter of citadels that steals my resources and once the peace treaty expires it's off we go again.

I can't be doing with cloak and dagger. Wage war early and often, neutralising holy cities and capturing Stonehenge ASAP. Burn anything that doesn't contain Petra, and if you've got a lot of Capitals to eat don't even bother keeping that.

 

[MechMedic130]

I think a caveat would be that you need to have two civs that can really lay into each other. It does no good to send the Zulu smashing into Morocco, you have to try to pit two pretty equal civs against each other.

 

[lindsay40k]

My last experience was pitting Rome against Ottomans. Even though Suleiman had Great Wall and his UUs, and other AIs joining in on his side, he lost everything up to Istanbul and then Rome became unstoppable :/

 

[MechMedic130]

Rome is so hard to beat on Deity, they can just build EVERYTHING.

 

[InaneObserver]

everyone hated me because I wouldn't turn Commie

Good on you. As a wise robot once said, death is a preferable alternative to communism.

 

[fyar]

I keep seeing this advice on Deity to bribe AIs to go to war with one another. However, usually my experience on Deity is lindsay's: I bribe some civs to go to war to slow each other down, but inevitably one of them comes out on top and becomes the runaway. Then it's impossible to stop that civ.

I've also had a game where the other civs were Ethiopia, Byzantium, Polynesia, etc., and try as I might, I couldn't bribe any of them to go to war with one another. It's hard to keep pace with the AI (science-wise and especially culture-wise) if they can focus solely on building their infrastructure without having to go to war.

 

[Sclb]

You have to know which AI to bribe. Usually the warmongering ones are the cheapest and most efficient. You also need to bribe them against another civ that is similar in strength that you know that the war won't be one sided. Good luck bribing a peacemonger civ such as Byzantium to war.

 

[fyar]

You have to know which AI to bribe. Usually the warmongering ones are the cheapest and most efficient. You also need to bribe them against another civ that is similar in strength that you know that the war won't be one sided. Good luck bribing a peacemonger civ such as Byzantium to war.

That's exactly my point: in the game I described, ALL of the civs were peacemongerers. It's just the luck of the draw in that regard.

One thing I'm learning is to try to get multiple wars against a single civ, if I think it'll be too one-sided. E.g., in my current Deity game, Attila has already eliminated Babylonia and has razed São Paulo. So when I bribed him to DoW my nearest unfriendly neighbor Persia, I also bribed him to DoW Boudicca and Pedro. Hopefully a 3v1 will even the odds.

 

[beetle]

That's exactly my point: in the game I described, ALL of the civs were peacemongerers.

No denouncing going on? No tensions from Ideology conflict? Sometimes I have to check bribe offers more often than seems reasonable. Or I need to offer six lux or triple digit gpt!

One thing I'm learning is to try to get multiple wars against a single civ, if I think it'll be too one-sided.

That is a good technique. If you make all the bribes on the same turn, all with the same AI, he does not considered the cumulative odds at all.

 

[fyar]

No denouncing going on? No tensions from Ideology conflict? Sometimes I have to check bribe offers more often than seems reasonable. Or I need to offer six lux or triple digit gpt!

Well, I could get Babylonia and Polynesia to go to war, but they weren't the problem. Among the other civs that were getting too powerful, I couldn't get any of them to DoW each other for almost the entire game.

In the end I won anyway. But I had to nuke Theodora to do it. I was 6 turns from launch when my spy uncovered that she was 3 turns from her last spaceship part. It was my only warfare the entire game. Unfortunately I was actually going for my first *peaceful* Deity victory and I fell just 3 turns short.