Deity - one city challenge strategy

[Ego Psycho]

Excellent guide Phyacis. I started a game today and followed your advice but somehow I get this horrible feeling something is not right...most likely because the AI leads me so much in tech...

Anyhow, could you check some of my savegame files and tell me if something really is fatally wrong? I don't know if it's natural that they lead me in techs this much, but I haven't been really trading any techs since the philosophy tech my second GS got me and it's already 1320 AD ! I'm not quite sure but maybe I'm seriously screwed with the current game. Anyhow, if you don't mind giving some more detailed advice I will post some of my savegames so you can tell what you would have done.

 

[ungy]

Thanks for the guide phyacis--tried the game on emperor with 18 civs and med map--ran into a few problems:

had one target in mind for PA--when he went free religion I seemed pretty much capped on my relations (+17) and got the message "we don't like you enough" for the PA for about 50 turns. I haven't played with PA before so I don't know if there is a cutoff or if I just was getting unlucky.

to even have a chance at the PA either you or the target must have fascism--by that point I was getting way out researched by the AI and there were far fewer trading opportunities. Also the GP that I had used in the early game to keep up were getting pretty useless by then.

I actually had an pretty good city and was able to keep improvements for most of the game--I'm curious how you can keep up at all in research in the later stages at deity. If your improvements keep getting trashed you are never going to have a big city due to health issues.

I fell further behind in tech and gave it up when the AI had a spaceship half built and I was still trying to get tanks.
any advice would be welcome

 

[luckynick]

one thing i noticed :

while philosphic leader trait seems undoubtfully mandatory to get your GS early, i have to disagree about the same thing for spiritual.

i explain why : anarchy duration depends on your total pop size wich will be small except at later stages when you get your PA and start mass growth by malking all missing improvement inside and outside your city. So at most your anarchy duration if not spiritual will be 1 turn.
Second, let's think about how many time in game you will have to change civic :
1 - when you get monarchy (usually i switch both hereditary rules and slavery)
2 - when you get civil service to go to bureaucracy
optionnal : religion + religion related civics (but you will often avoid religions anyway)
optionnal : any other civis which is prefered by your target teamate.

So and so i think you will lose a minimum 2 turns production/science and mostly at max 4 or 5.

By the way i don't realy know wich trait can be better, it may depends on situation but one i have in mind is financial if you manage to get a costal city site.

Maybe organised and expensive can be usefull too as they increase respectively your income and your city growth potential.

Aggressive is a godd trait too since your defense will be stronger during first few turns and later on it can have a huge benefit when you go to offensive. plus your barrack and consequently your first archers will pump quicker.

By the way creative and industrious seems useless i think

 

[StupidMe]

I followed this and got a easy win. PAed with Gandi and won culturallly.

 

[Phyacis]

I've now posted an "easy" starting save (small, 18, nice position and resources) at the end of the opening post for anyone who wants to practice in a relatively tame environment. It will still be brutal before you're done, but less so than most deity occ maps. If anyone has particularly hard or easy occ start saves it would be good to post them here - occ is far more dependant on start position than a regular game is, and often you cant judge it until well into the game

@Excl,
Religion spread seems random. Murphys law says you always get the ones you dont want. I'm not aware of any way to manipulate this - could maybe try opening/closing borders to civs with/without the one you want - I'm not sure if that works or not though

Initial 4 pop cap. Situational, but the main ways to get past it are
1. Monarchy/hereditory
2. Globe theatre
3. culture (10% = +1 pop cap before theatre, +2 after)
4. Resources (most likely scenario is that you have seafood and can trade for hapiness resources)
Of these usually I go for globe theatre as the safe bet, unless I get lucky and trade for monarchy early

Getting your butt kicked - You'll find that "central" start locations are a lot more brutal than coastal ones. People with close borders are very eager to kick your butt initially. Some start locations can get very ugly - but can make for some of the best games, though perhaps not while practicing. Try a coastal one till you get your first win..


@Luckynick,
Valid points again.

I agree Philosophical is probably the most critical trait in OCC. Not for the GS rush, but for all the super specialists you can aquire over the course of a game and how fast you can get them (notably once you get caste system if you can use a religion they start arriving very fast for a while). If you arent using PA enabled I like Peter (philo/exp) a lot for occ, in part due to cossacks who are a very solid unit (lot easier to get someone to trade you horses in the late game than it is to get an oil trade). Financial is too situational I think, unless you regenerate until you get a coast location

Spiritual - maybe it depends on personal playstyle. Personally I change civics very often and couldnt live without spiritual. I'd say I switch at least 75-100 times in a normal game (less if winning easily and more if things are very close). Often I'll switch police state + representation a lot with vasalage + bureaucracy for example during defensive wars depending on how pillaged my land is. Same if a civ asks me to change to their fav religion or civic I often will for the easy +1, ditto if needing a civ to declare war on someone in a hurry. Common combos I use (sometimes mix + match between them) are

For research bursts
representation + bureaucracy + caste system + pacifism (pacifism often alternating on/off)

For unit production bursts
if enough tiles are online
police state + vasalage + serfdom + theocracy (theocracy often alternating on/off)
if lands are damaged and base production too low
universal sufferage + bureaucracy + slavery (if workers cant leave city) + theocracy

For building & wonder production bursts
Universal suffrage + bureaucracy + slavery (if good food resources) + org religion (note globe theatre makes high food/slavery very powerful)

Aggresive is nice, but I think far more powerful in the early game than the late game (personally I find the late game has the harder combat, and by then hopefully you're already getting +12-14xp and free medic 1, but situational - if you face someone with iron early and dont have axemen then you would be glad of aggressive

Possibly I micro-manage civics too much, but in my opinion the total benefit of doing so throughout a game feels substantial

@Ego
Yes, you'll find you are nearly always lagging on tech and that's okay (as you get used to deity and the politics you can actually stay much closer for much longer). In a worst case scenario you can just get to feudalism and then relax on science and wait till you get your PA to catch you up

@Ungy
+17 and they didnt like you enough? I've never seen that - it's rare you can even get that high. Did you have any negatives? Did they have a DP or PA with someone else? (each civ can only have one PA) Either way, try selling techs to any backward civs to raise cash (you'll get scammed so this is a desperate measure) and give the target AI as much as you can raise. Something is weird there though..

@Stupidme
LOL - cant say I've ever seen a cultural win at deity - that must of been a pretty unusual map. In my games gandhi is usually one of the first to die - other AI seem to really like abusing him

 

[Ego Psycho]

I have found out bribing certain civilizations seems significantly harder than others, might be common knowledge but anyhow, at least Egypt and Japan (especially Japan) never seem to "like me enough" for PA. I will NEVER try to pick Japan for my PA target again...

On the other hand some civilizations accept PA more easily, for example Julius accepted my request for PA before we even had DP, so I didn't need to waste turns while having DP with him. Mansa Musa might also be easily bribable as he often likes to trade.

 

[sfrafrows]

Excelent post, very well writen. Gave a 5 star... keep the good job Phyacis.

 

[luckynick]

a one last thing, when it comes to modern warfare and you have at least (mostly) one strong opponent, things can get annoying/long/hard since you pump only one unit at a time and baddies tend to pump same plus they have thier precedents upgraded units.
having your 30 modern armor + mech infant and stealth bomber riped away by like 80 opposing units is ugly believe me.

 

[New Sun]

When you start building your archers research animal husbandry, then writing. If you have sea food resources then go sailing, pottery, writing instead (little slower this route but not much)

Do you mean fishing, pottery writing? Or fishing, sailing, pottery, writing?

 

[Phyacis]

Ego_psycho,
Interesting thought that different civs are easier/harder to get a PA with. I havent experimented with that. Personally I like Huayna Capec and Catherine a lot. Both seem to be agreeable to PA's reasonably easily, good with research, and capable of holding their own in a fight. A nice feature with either of the russian leaders (never see Peter much though) is that they usually have a ton of cossacks and as soon as you get flight that gets converted into a ton of gunships - so they make excellent pillagers - they follow you around, you take the cities, they strip the land clean.. nice synergy

sfrafrows,
thank you sir. Not a 'normal' game - but something fun to try

Luckynick,
Yes, it can be very annoying when your offensive stack is taken out by insta-upgraded units. I find the best ways to handle this are to either take out the aluminum and oil with spies to block the upgrade, or if too late, use gunships (with the withdraw and visiblity promotions) to scout ahead of the stack and pillage any nearby railroads, so the stack (mostly tanks with collatoral damage) can attack instead of defending whenever possible - with big stacks whoever gets the most collateral damage wins, which comes down to who gets to attack first. If you're on or next to enemy railroads you're very vulnerable

New Sun,
I meant fishing, pottery, writing. I've edited it now to fix. Good catch ..no pun intended

 

[Faerwon]

I usually play on noble/prince, but the OP inspired me to jump in the deep end for a learning experience. After some tries to get a good city spot, I opted to download. The position is incredible with 6 seafood, marble (though you can't quarry it for a long while) and iron right under the spot. However, it may be a bit too secluded as I didn't get into much fighting until later. Eventually I was instacrushed when I built 3 workboats, made peace, plonked down workboats on the clams and 3 opponents declared war on me and overran my longbows with about 20 riflemen/cannon.

I did survive up to 1400 AD or so, which is a lot more than I expected.

After philosophy and such, trying to reach fascism (for PA option) looked like the biggest hurdle for me.

I have found out bribing certain civilizations seems significantly harder than others, might be common knowledge but anyhow, at least Egypt and Japan (especially Japan) never seem to "like me enough" for PA. I will NEVER try to pick Japan for my PA target again...

On the other hand some civilizations accept PA more easily, for example Julius accepted my request for PA before we even had DP, so I didn't need to waste turns while having DP with him. Mansa Musa might also be easily bribable as he often likes to trade.

I have to agree with this. I haven't gone for PAs but Toku is definitely a xenophobe or something. Irregardless of the order/proximity of contact, I can get open borders with everyone EXCEPT Japan.

As for religion spreading.. just keep up open borders with everyone of the religion you want. Sooner or later they'll send a missionary.

 

[Zombie69]

Irregardless

A fan of George W. Bush?

 

[luckynick]

About that :

I have to agree with this. I haven't gone for PAs but Toku is definitely a xenophobe or something. Irregardless of the order/proximity of contact, I can get open borders with everyone EXCEPT Japan.

It's specific to japan, in order to get open border or tech trade with toku you need to share same state religion as him, or share war effort at least.

don't try to get PA from facism, communism is better, if you feel backward don't even try to continue research except for building modifier, it's better to get mass cash so you will be able to bribe defense pact, then PA since both require only one of the two civ to have needed techs.

The only porblem is your PA target declaring war on somone due to border tension before PA is avaible thus cancelling Def pact and making you restart for getting def pact then PA.


About modern war, i have found that beelining to robotic is a good method especially when neither you or your mate have alu, i have the prob in one of my game right now, and i plan to invade a neighbor who have 1 alu so i try to get muchas infantry, upgrade them to mech inf then invade by slowly marching your mech inside ennemy territory with gunship and tank covered in back of them for precision strike (same for artillery, and some marine), then when an ennemy city is a sight, bring on your tank and artillery and boom !

It's better since mechinf can fortify, get march and medic easyly, require no aluminium to build, can intercept planes, and finnaly have a whopping 32 str wich is better against gunship for example as SAM inf (18 +50 % = 27), more they can get pinch or ambush depending of ennemy force type.

By the way it may be usefull to get some gunship with charge +25% against siege weapon, to dispose of isolated ennemy artillery.

 

[crunch]

A fan of George W. Bush?

Did he really use that word? I love him!
http://images.google.com/images?q=bush+ape&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

 

[Faerwon]

A fan of George W. Bush?

Hmm I don't know where I've picked up the word but it's certainly not a bushism. I googled and found a comprehensive article/column about it: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-irr1.htm

At least I don't misunderestimate my opponents in Civ 4.

 

[Zombie69]

I know the "word" has been around long before Bush became president, but he did make it more popular, hence my remark. Anyway, being from Finland, i knew you would appreciate being told this word is wrong, and i thought this would be a funny way to do so.

 

[Excl]

Finland? Isn't Conan O'Brien President of Finland?

I tried the load game last night ... I actually had better results, but I don't think I was close to winning. The trouble this time, stemmed from picking the right PA partner early in the game.

I'm trying to pick a pack of 3 or 4 guys for potential PA's later in the game, and then go with the highest one by the time I hit 100 AD or so. The problem is, I rarely get the best one, and half the time they usually switch to Free Religion before I can get Defense Pact. It ends up taking forever for them to like me enough.

In my game last night, I narrowed it down to Catherine and HC (Incas). By the time DP time rolled around, Catherine had fallen way down the line. HC was number 3 in score, but Asoka had jumped way out infront ... Almost twice the score of HC. HC also had switched to Free Religion, so it took me awhile just to get Def Pact. Once I got that, I had to wait another 100 turns or so before he had researched enough to enable PA. By that point, when we had merged, India's score was almost the same as our combined score. After another 100 turns of research just to get tanks ... India was well on their way to a space victory. I took the time to crank out about 10 tanks, and tried to take out a smaller civ, hoping to expand HC's land. Alexander ended up wiping me out.

 

[Kenji]

Excl, maybe u should declare war on Asoka when he started jump out infront... so he will focus on having military spawning to pwn u instead of rush to the space...

*if u can defend your OCC well

 

[crunch]

My first attempt ended by flipping to Gandhi. Bah

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Most fun I've ever had losing. I've now tried three OCC games, all on prince. My thoughts:

1) On easier difficulties, with crowded maps (standard map, 18 civs) I've needed to declare war early on a weak civ just to get the high XP unit. Not enough barbs in crowded map. If I wait for someone to pick at me, I'm facing swordsmen instead of other archers. Then, my highest XP defender always faces the best first attacker and dies. I end up with 8 level three archers, no level fours. (This might be different if you border Gingus or Monte, but I always seem to get Catherine and Hatepshut in OCC, Gingus and Monte in all other games.)

2) In all three games, I ended up with no religion until well into the ADs. Open borders with everybody. I trade techs like crazy, but have no resources to trade. I've not gotten over that hump. In my current game 12 civs are Jewish and none of them like me.

3) I've decided that next time, I'll print out Phyacis's first post and follow it to the letter. I think I'm researching in the wrong order, as I always seem to get "we fear you're too advanced" and I sit on civil service, while everybody else has four techs they won't trade me. This probably goes hand-in-hand with the no religion issue.

4) I've gotten PA once, with Hatepshut. She was probably sixth in score. The resources came too late. By the time I could build tanks, three or four others had mech infantry or modern armor plus a stealth bomber or twelve. I survived that game until the end (space race loss) but the other two I succumbed around the time my long bowmen start dying in droves to war elephants.