Deity post patch

[MadDjinn]

hmm, now I'm sad. I'm closing in on finishing the recording of my first post-patch LP (Rome) and other than the first 70 turns (give or take), I basically did non-optimal stuff for about 160 turns or so before deciding to finish the game. (only one AI got wiped out in the beginning)

Even then I let an AI hit modern while I was hitting Industrial, but still beat them down with Artillery. (stupid Egypt built the PT 10 turns earlier than expected)

I think Deity just got 'easier' if you survive the initial rush.

sure, you have to get past the first 100 turns of DoWs and such, but once you 'own' your area (via whatever means) you can pretty much still mess around and do what you want.

The AI doesn't handle upgrades or combat well, and I think it's getting schizophrenic about the win conditions again. (and tech paths I think) Or it's seemingly easy to knock it off it's plan.
An AI that has all techs on the globalization/computer path should be focused on Diplomacy, right? And if they're at war with someone who has 75% of the CSs in the game? Most of us would 'find a new path' rather than get to the end and realize you've lost 1/2 your empire on a dead end strategy.

 

[MadDjinn]

oh, and the happiness system is too easy now. It's not hard to carry a decent surplus happiness if you make some basic early choices.

This just makes me wonder why the dev are 'borrowing'/listening to the whining on the forums/'balance' mods. They should make the game good, not change it to fit BS they find from a minority on the forums who likely don't understand the system mechanics in the first place, let alone can make intelligent suggestions on how to find real 'balance' for the game.

(ok, kinda ranty, but between the 2K forums and here, I can count on my fingers the number of 'intelligent' change requests I've seen - RAs, and a few other core mechanics things. Of course, the dev aren't always agreeing and make bad choices anyways)

 

[Gamewizard]

I hope you're not reffering to Thal's mod, cause he deserves praise.

 

[aimlessgun]

The AI doesn't handle upgrades or combat well, and I think it's getting schizophrenic about the win conditions again. (and tech paths I think) Or it's seemingly easy to knock it off it's plan.
An AI that has all techs on the globalization/computer path should be focused on Diplomacy, right? And if they're at war with someone who has 75% of the CSs in the game? Most of us would 'find a new path' rather than get to the end and realize you've lost 1/2 your empire on a dead end strategy.

Yeah, getting the AI to efficiently and flexibly pursue non-domination win conditions might be the most important thing to fix about the game.

 

[Lichgate]

I've lost a good half dozen diety games this week, mostly due to the initial rush of some aggressive AI. After reading through all the posts in this thread, I've found I saw many of the same things people are encountering...

AI can amass a crapton of gold, but when I steal their city states, they just seem to sit on their pile of gold and do nothing about it. If the AI has 10x the gold I have, he should just take the city state right back.

AI seems to ignore you for the most part if you aren't encroaching on what they think is 'their future territory'. Basically, any start on your own island seems to be the way to get ignored. My current Diety game has gone 400+ turns without a single DoW on me.

AI should be more aggressive towards an immenent victory on your part...I'm 4 policies away from a cultural victory, meanwhile Pachacuti's army is 5x bigger than mine and he controls half the world. IMO, he should b-line his superior troops and at least attempt to take me out. The only thing he's doing is telling me he's hostile every 20 turns or so. Good for him.

Looking forward to my first victory. May not be what is termed a 'standard' victory, but I'm playing:

Monty on a small earth map, diety difficulty, and I'll most likely win a cultural victory with only 1 city. I rushed to get the hanging gardens, followed it up with the Hagia Sophia, and then the Sistine chapel. I'm cranking out +36 GA points per turn and have settled 8 of them in my city so far. I'll see if I can get some pics after I win.

 

[MadDjinn]

AI can amass a crapton of gold, but when I steal their city states, they just seem to sit on their pile of gold and do nothing about it. If the AI has 10x the gold I have, he should just take the city state right back.

even when you are destroying them piece by piece, they won't spend their gold pile.

Ie,

I'm at war with X civ.
They have 24k gold stored with +500gpt or so.
I'm taking their cities with artillery and cav/tanks while they're defending with a few mech infantry, infantry and a couple tanks. maybe an artillery piece or two.

They have oil, they have flight. They don't spam fighters until it's too late.

AI - please sir, stop nuking me!

Me - spend your money on nukes! I know you can.

AI - but I need the money!

Me - for what?

AI - ... City states?

Me - I already have them and you're at war with me, so no UN for you!

AI - Want peace?

 

[Rittmeyer]

I hope you're not reffering to Thal's mod, cause he deserves praise.

My problem with this "balance" mods is that they make no sense to me in this kind of game. I mean, people who are really competitive about Civ won't play this mods. If you beat Deity consistently with Thal's whatever mod, you are not beating the real Deity, sorry. You have no grounds to come to a discussion with other Deity beating players that play the pure version of the game.

Of course, most people are not that competitive and play for the fun of it, which is great (I wish I was like that). But for these people, there's not even the need for a game that is 100% balanced anyways, be it via mods or via a thousand patches (I hate this!). Simply because, at non-top levels you can play whatever you want and do well. SO Commerce tree is weak when compared to others? Who cares! Play your naval-gold empire with the whole commerce tree in King and you are going to win anyways (if you are reasonably good at other areas of the game). Play with or without RA's, blocking or not if you choose to sign them. Don't build the National College and you will still win. Don't LS rush and you can still wipe your neighbours.

In my opinion, the need of carefull balance comes from the urge to have more then 1 or 2 viable strategies for IMM+ (Hell, even in Immortal this might not be a problem. I won an IMM game last patch for fun, just spamming GW+Himeji+Kremilin while neglecting almost everything else - so problably Deity is the only level in which balace is really a problem). And people playing IMM+ probably have no reason to use mods like that (if you say you play IMM+ but only with those mods, then as I said you are not really playing IMM+).

Disclaimer: I know nothing about MP, I dont play that. So if MP needs change all that, ok. But when it comes to SP, I stand by what I said.

 

[RogueFalcon]

Hi folks,

First time of the forum.

I've been steadily working my way up the difficulty levels and have been beating my head against the wall trying to beat deity post patch. I've been able to do it once playing time/domination only (i.e. no tech, diplomacy, cultural victories) on the continents map. Basically, I was able to kill off the other two civs on my island (they were fighting each other) and then I held out until the tech gap closed near the end of the game. I find the AI is not good at countering a naval invasion of a coastal city. I just went coastal city to coastal city, attacking, razing and then fleeing.

Fortunately the AI cannot navigate naval battles well, so this served as a buffer on the deity level.

I tried to horseman rush, but this did not work. I could not get enough horses produced before the other civs' cities were too high level to attack with horsemen.

The spy feature works well at narrowing the inevitable tech gap, but it's really frustrating that the AI doesn't play "smarter", it just gets huge advantages.

I wish I could just stop playing, but I can't help but want to finish all the difficulty levels!

I've stopped building wonders, which takes some of the fun out of the game.

Any new thoughts on how to beat deity? Is it even possible without playing an exploit?

 

[hix]

Welcome to the forums. Please note that this is a year-old thread, and probably nothing in it is that applicable anymore.

Anyway, try this thread for good opening strategy.

 

[RogueFalcon]

Thanks. I didn't notice that it said July 2011 and not 2012.
I took a look at that link. Very helpful.