Deity Level Not Challenging My Arse!

[brainpan]

I've heard it said around these parts that immortal level must be played for a challenging single-player game, but that even at deity level it is fairly easy to eek out wins on a consistant basis.

I can agree with the first part, assuming that the player is fairly experienced and very patient. But hell no to the second, unless I'm missing something vital.

I just rage quit my last game at turn 50, the same turn Orthus appeared. This is how it played out: as a Kuriotate, I had built just as fast as I could--1 settler and straight warriors--and brown nosed all the evil players with free mana gifts and eventual open borders to delay attacks. Didn't matter, the Khazad came flying in with 20, count 'em 20, units and a bold promise to do me serious harm.

Unless I play as a super early rush friendly civ, this seems to be the inevitable result for me. A sad overwhelming defeat.

My usual settings are pangea, 8-9 civs, trade tech off, and alter victory off. I'm still playing .023 because my computer is lame and because my lame brother still hasnt fixed it.

Anyway, has anyone actually won this sort of game? I'm thinking it isn't possible.

 

[oyzar]

Win a game where you get attacked early on deity without being prepeared? Don't think it is really possible to win on defense which is what makes deity rather luck based. It is certainly possible to win on the offensive assuming you can stop people from attacking you.. With the extra good/evil modifiers in ffh it is a bit harder obviously... The point is that the AI doesn't actually understand any of the game mechanics so only way you can not win is to get overpowered by bonuses before you get time to run some strategy.

 

[Ecofarm]

On emperor, you can make a few minstakes. On immortal, you can make perhaps 1 mistake. On deity, you have to get lucky.

I've won deity 2v2(AI), tiny pangea, high sea, temperate, quick speed. No options. Were it not for mages, it might be much harder. Of course, the AI doesn't work as a team so well :/. I'm going to try with druids, and see if it is possible solo vs 2 AI on tiny.

 

[it-ogo]

My only FFH game on deity was Sidar, epic, Raging barbs, standard, 4 AI. Continuous barbarians provided me with continuous lvl6 units - shades - free specialists. After some time I stopped the game with my evident prevail. Epic is too boring still.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

The settings make a big difference. Whether you add or subtract other players, and whether you have raging barbarians on or not (which the ai will handle better at diety, but still don't seem to take into consideration).

That said, I don't play diety myself. I find enough challenge on emperor, especially if I annoy enough ai players early on.

 

[vorshlumpf]

I've only played one game on Deity, and that was the Age of Ice scenario where the set-up and specific mechanics (specifically, 'barrage') allowed me to win. I can't see myself winning on that level with the regular game. My 'challenging' difficulty level is Emperor, but I prefer Monarch (or my own home-grown difficulty settings).

 

[Humakty]

Monarch is fine for me, but I love to play Clan of Embers. Can't imagine playing them on emperor + .

 

[nossr50]

I play multiplayer games, so do I set the players to Immortal or the AI?

 

[Rod]

I also play on Emperor, but I noticed one issue. It seems that only Emperor allows a constant survive of the initial onslaught, but later on the game gets to easy and you would wish for better opponents.

So what do I mean. I belive we need a mechanic that allows weak civs to collapse for good and then later to reemerge stronger and (more important) technologically on par with the other civs.

I kindly suggest a look into Rhyes and Fall of Civilization and the Collapse/Emerge Mechanic inbuilt over there. It really makes up for a challenging game up till the end.
(you might argue that RFC is completely depended on one map and timeline, but this is only true for the whole mod. The mechanic is actually not restricted and can be coded in a generic way.)

 

[Gigaz]

I guess the Clan can win on deity against 18 Civs on huge maps.
The unique spell can be used for an early rush or to make contact with every civ on an archipelago map.
But still a good starting position, 2-3 techs from huts and epic or marathon speed and a bit luck is necessary.

 

[Humakty]

Now they have the warrens, nothing can stop a warmonging Clan.(at least not AI's)