Deity Shadow Game

[Fippy]

For me EXP is just one tier below the big ones like FIN and PHI.
Makes for a very comfy start, extra health doesn't do much early but allows more resource selling later i.e.

ORG gets better the more isolated you are
In steps..bad on Pangaea etc.
Decent if you are on a continent with let's say 2 AIs.
Good in semi-iso, we already rely mostly on just our economy.
Very good in full iso, the 2nd city often costs only 1gpt at start so we tech quicker right away.
May also want COL for more city freedom (no early 2 scientists needed in 2-3 cities, instead cottages etc can be grown). Cheap courthouses are nice here.
Lighthouses are common buildings in iso, there are usually many coastal spots.

 

[bigbamboo]

The steady income growth from the Financial trait can’t break through in tough situations, and it underperforms in starting terrains without rivers or coastal access. This is the main reason we rank Financial as mid-tier. Whether it’s being squeezed for city space (which requires Aggressive), securing key strategic resource spots (which requires Creative), or rapid city development (which requires Expansive), Financial rarely helps. On our random maps, not every game is a safe development scenario—the AI can disrupt our plans at any moment. We’re used to breaking through in the midst of conflict, rather than slowly building up to outpace the AI. Even after Turn 150, our cities might still need to rely on extreme Slavery to squeeze out production for a decisive battle against a massive superpower, and Financial just doesn’t fit that playstyle. That’s why we prefer Organized. Our philosophy leans toward early warfare, seizing the initiative as soon as possible—that’s probably where our differences lie

PS：The trait of financial management is the only one that lacks the ability to accelerate construction, which is also a significant drawback.

 

[sampsa]

it underperforms in starting terrains without rivers or coastal access.

Yes, though such situation is very rare honestly. If capital is landlocked without 2nd city needs to grab some or huge -potential.

The trait of financial management is the only one that lacks the ability to accelerate construction, which is also a significant drawback.

Hmm, not sure if that's entirely true. In normal situations FIN boosts tech so much you are often attacking say 2T earlier.

What I might agree with is that early war pangaea is not the most favourable setting for FIN.

 

[bigbamboo]

We prefer to control the initiative and maintain a strong sense of rhythm. During peacetime, we focus on Village economies and population growth. But once we unlock key military techs, we unleash all our war potential, squeezing every drop of production from our population to mass-produce armies. In a very short time, we crush the target nation, then briefly recover by rebuilding our Village economies and assessing the strength of the next target—immediately starting another cycle of intense production. We believe the rewards from Classical-era warfare are greater and more stable, which might be the root of our differing views on leader traits. That’s why we highly value traits that align with a 100-turn game or earlier and provide strong returns, such as Creative, Expansive, Charismatic, Organized, and Philosophical

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I probably have one of the most chinese playing style of people here and I think I rate EXP higher than most people. Nowhere near FIN for me though. ORG has nothing to do with winning the game IMO, it's nice to have when you'd already win without it.

I think 20-30% win rate is not very good, but it's a start.

Do you think the Chinese community's emphasis on early warfare is hurting their deity difficulty win rate?

Don't get me wrong, their approach is definitely optimal on some maps. I have seen some videos, they're impressive in their own way.

For other maps, would "our" usual strategies of curaissers and cannons be the more suitable after all?

 

[sampsa]

Do you think the Chinese community's emphasis on early warfare is hurting their deity difficulty win rate?

In short, certainly yes, if that win rate is 20-30%.

For other maps, would "our" usual strategies of curaissers and cannons be the more suitable after all?

Most certainly yes. Cuirassiers are kind of an instawin button on pangaea if you get there. And I'd think you get there a lot even if you blindly play that strategy and use "cheap tricks" like city gifting efficiently.

 

[notslin]

The more I think about, the more I think there was an error on turn 1 in this game, after moving settler 1E.

I think settling on the coast like @bigbamboo did was better.

Consideration 1. You gain +1 C on capital tile, but lose the plantation bonus yield, which is +1 F, +2 C, which is +2 C over a farm (until biology).

Case 1, neighbors, early rush: Calendar is too far out to be relevant.

Case 2, neighbors, Cuirassier rush: You need to tech to Cuirassiers. So you may have plantations for the half of the turns before Cuirassiers. But the +1 C in the capital in the first half should outweigh the +2 C gain from the plantation in the second half.

Case 3, isolated: Here plantations may be more valuable. However, the benefits of being on the coast will be much larger.

Consideration 2. Settling on the coast may ruin seafood.

I think you only ruin coastal seafood by settling on the coast if you're on a narrow peninsula, which doesn't apply here. It's possible you ruin ocean seafood, but it seems very unlikely, and ocean seafood isn't as critical.

Consideration 3. Settling on the coast (1SE) vs in the forest (1NE) loses you: flood plain and plains tile, and gains you: forested grassland riverside with spices, forested grassland riverside, and forested plains hill.

I think this is is a wash: losing the flood plain is bad, but gaining an two grassland riversides (one with spices) is nice. It's possible you lose a strategic resource from the plains tile or grassland hill, but I suppose you could pick it up with your second city. The good news with this coastal spot is you don't really lose much land; in fact, you actually you have one more riverside tile for your capital.

Consideration 4. Settling on the coast provides benefits such as harbor (extra health and trade routes), being able to pump work boats and ships, potentially being able to use coastal tiles, etc.

Consideration 5. Settling on the coast is slightly worse for fog busting and may make for a less centralized capital.

 

[Fippy]

I think settling on the coast like @bigbamboo did was better

No

 

[notslin]

No

Why though? Is it Consideration 3 or something else?

 

[Fippy]

Needs a very good reason to move your cap further into a corner.
+1c from Spices isn't..one turn further to improve rice as well, PH city cannot be settled anymore..less forests..
I like his game but that was his most questionable move by far, imo.

 

[sampsa]

How about the long version ?
As an avid watcher of Lain, you should realize how often he goes into a Construction rush.
Also, you're going to find yourself with a very short list, if you try and reference the players here on CivFan who have a better win rate on random maps with no reloads (don't count me in ! ).

In vintage BIC style a very confusing post. Seriously you think you can't win 20% on deity pangaea? Or do you mean that you habitually reload? I don't.

I'm sure there are several posters who I'd bet win closer to 100% than 50%. Lain, drewisfat, CarpoolKaraoke, pedro78 come first into mind. Even I can win 20% on pangaea I think, but not interested in playing currently really (especially pangaea).

How often does Lain go construction? Not a lot. What does that mean? I do not know. Concerning his perceived (I say perceived because I do not know, but he did stream and never realoaded) winrate, maybe that he thinks it's not the most reliable way to win?

 

[Fippy]

Lain played way more fractal maps from what i remember
He also likes HAs, so do most of us..doesn't always have to be cats.

I really liked the gotm deity games.
Strictly no reload rule..even on misclicks like your mouse slips, which you could always reload in normal games without anyone looking at you.
It's certainly different when you know it's not allowed, they are special games with a different feel.

 

[drewisfat]

BiC is right in that Lain does go construction very frequently. In general he's a very "meta" player - rarely see him play with UUs. He doesn't even think cataphracts are good. @sampsa I'm ok with you insulting yourself but how dare you omit Fippy!
I'm sure I'm delusional for thinking I'm always going to win pangaeas, but I got to a point where I'd feel more shame for losing than gratification from winning, so I stick with fractals or challenge maps now.

20% win rate on pangaea is not great. That's about the odds that you get something OP like gems, gold, stone, triple hammer capital, war chariots, etc. In other words that's about the odds I'd give to an Immortal player moving up to Deity their first time just from the natural variability of difficulty in the map. However, there is a big difference between not reloading for bad dice rolls and not reloading for unintentional misclicks, which we might be understating as part of the difference between 25% and 50%. It's really hard for me to go a game without a devastating misclick. Game loves to have units selected and then any stray click spells disaster.

Construction rush is an important tool in the toolbox, but the best strategy depends on the map, traits, UUs, resources, etc. Usually the most important barometer is city count. I strongly recommend getting as many good cities as you can first and letting that dictate when you should attack instead of the reverse. Also, early wars (HA/catapults) are very dependent on forests for hammers. Mansa Musa in a floodplain paradise is trivial to win by going Lib, but can be nigh impossible going axepult.

I suspect the big disadvantage in the Chinese community is the lack of using BUG or any other quality of life mod. Bamboo implied he checks WHEOOHRN manually, but that's incredibly time consuming to do every turn for every leader, and they said they had no time to play scripts besides pangaea. Knowing if someone is plotting is foundational to good diplomacy. We also have access to more code diver knowledge and diplo guides, which makes safety and runaway AIs less of a dice roll.

 

[Earendil2024]

in china we like siege weapon better,so our game strategies have evolved from cannons to catapult or trebuchet. As we gain control of the early war rhythm, we also try more and more to use horse arher, swordsmen, and even axe.

Do you think the Chinese community's emphasis on early warfare is hurting their deity difficulty win rate?

Don't get me wrong, their approach is definitely optimal on some maps. I have seen some videos, they're impressive in their own way.

For other maps, would "our" usual strategies of curaissers and cannons be the more suitable after all?

 

[sampsa]

@sampsa I'm ok with you insulting yourself but how dare you omit Fippy!

Well, certainly a name I considered mentioning, but then again when did she last play?

 

[drewisfat]

I mean the last pangaea game I remember playing was the Toku warmonger one, so I'm not sure I could be included by this logic. We shouldn't misrepresent ourselves to the Chinese by ignoring two decades of history. Dozens if not hundreds of posters past and present on here have been able to win a majority of deity pangaea games. Heck, Snaaty claimed to win most of his AW games lol

 

[Fippy]

but then again when did she last play?

I watched more AI Survivor than actually playing in the last ~5 years, fair point
While at that topic..you both should join the picking game this year (if there's a season).

I should still be good at Iso (the last big thing here, with Lain Pedro etc)..but Pangaea must be years ago.

 

[Simple Machine]

Thanks for all the responses

I've only played a couple Immortal games, and Deity AI was a tick faster than what I'm used to.

Try one until turn 64 (1440 BC)

Spoiler :

I build third city on PH south of the ivory instead of next to the ivory, and on turn 64, Asoka settled his 5th city right next to my capital, blocking the ivory.

Try two until turn 127 (300 AD)

Spoiler :

Asoka starts spamming wonders (he has 7 already), and I build some units without much micro. On turn 124, I declare and enter with 9 War Elephants (with 5 EXP each), 2 Swordsmen, 9 catapults, 4 axes, and a few warriors for good measure. Asoka already has longbows and pikes. My stack is enough to take his first city, but I lose a few units. On immortal he might be a bit farther behind and I'd be able to take a couple cities without losses! I should've micro'd more in order to get to Construction faster and build my stack faster.

@notslin Thanks for playing! I haven't read past your T127 spoiler as I haven't played that far yet. I do feel that even a 10-turn later attack date can have significant ramifications for war success, especially on Deity where a strong techer (like Asoka) can get engineering quickly. Of course I'm still at T75 (1000BC) and haven't built my stack yet so we'll see how well I do... I see @bigbamboo attacked T110 with 13 cats and 15 support troops.

@bigbamboo -- interesting opening, quite different from mine. I don't think I would have considered settling on the spices in the beginning. I have sometimes gone for the 2nd city Great Lighthouse but didn't prioritize it here. Looks like you expanded faster than I did, and got some Pyramids failgold, which I didn't plan to do. You got quite a good looking stack and attack date! I saw you went HBR first and then finished construction T98. How many barracks and stables did you build? Will see what I can muster up.

Is vassaling India better than conquering outright? But I suppose if you get to that point, you are in a strong position either way.

A couple of observations from a quick look on my phone. I’m dubious about an academy. It’s a nice capital but your slider will be low for a while given your going construction attack. Also it looks like it’s a Pangea or functionally so given the number of AIs met. Academies on a Pangea are generally not a great play because the power of tech trading is so high. Also, using philosophy to bribe the Khmer down the line could be a nice play. I’m even more dubious of Oxford given it really needs you to tech beyond tanks to pay back which shouldn’t be necessary for a likely Pangea.

I see, this makes sense. I think I get too attached to the vision of building a "super city" capital which isn't always necessary. I definitely appreciate that bulbing philosophy gives far greater immediate returns, which is often more important than long-term returns.

Secondly, I think you should have gone AH earlier. You need it for HBR and to make your third city more productive once the borders have popped. Importantly, you may have discovered horses in which case a horse archer rush could have been on. Depending on timings it may have been possible to get AH before settling the third city, so you could settle for horses if they’re not in your culture. Elephants are great but horse archers are just so much earlier and Ashoka is pretty much the perfect target so I think it would have been worth finding out. Horse archers could be particularly nice here because you’ve no copper and it’s not clear you can trade for IW (or that you have iron) which makes construction potentially slower than normal because your only non-siege would be elephants so you can’t start building the non-siege element of your army until you’ve finished teching.

I would say this is definitely a hole in my play -- I don't really have any experience doing horse archer rushes, so it typically isn't even a strategy I consider, even if I should go for it. What general conditions are most promising for a horse archer attack? Just lots of forests and limited space or a bad neighbor? I should practice one sometime.

If you had the choice in a game, would you prefer a horse archer rush to catapults+elephants?

I think the monument in your third city should be whipped (and should already have been so or chopped). The plains ivory isn’t a great tile and getting the sheep earlier would improve the city a lot. You’re also just about to grow on to an unimproved tile.

I see now this is pretty lazy on my part ... these are the kinds of early game bad habits I have to be more thoughtful about. I think I was planning to get a worker in this 3rd city with expansive bonus on the hammers.

More generally you’ve played 25 highly consequential turns and made some fairly important decisions, like settling the ivory, not going AH and flicking in mysticism. I’m not saying these are wrong - although I’d have tried to get AH - it’s just that it’s a lot easier for the experts here to comment if you go a bit slower.

OK, will play shorter turn sets. I'll be able to play again and post another few turns towards the end of the week. Re: your last two points, I haven't looked into diplo yet (check for close border tensions) to see where Elizabeth is. No pre-chopping yet either, and still only 3 cities, with one more very shortly on the way for the pigs. I'll have to check again when I open the game back up, but at T75 I am just about to get Math. What's left is Masonry-Construction-HBR (plan is in that order). I'm pretty sure that's <20 turns away.

The academy always seems dubious to me in these situations.

Right, I think I'll change plans to a philosophy bulb instead.

 

[notslin]

Hmm, I tried again and am doing better. Still, AI is quite fast.

Turn 126, a third attempt

Spoiler :

Went faster and declared on turn 106 on Asoka after Khmer attacked Asoka and asked me to join. I only had a few elephants and catapults. Asoka got Feudalism a couple turns later, but I managed to capture Delhi on turn 125. Then Asoka peace vassaled to Khmer, so I wasn't able to get some techs off Asoka. Toku previously declared war on Khmer, so I'll just keep on marching towards Toku, instead of attacking my friend Khmer who is very advanced because I traded him a lot of techs.

A dozen or so turns later, final.

Spoiler :

The wonders Asoka built in the two cities I captured were helpful, but Toku was too much of a challenge! Didn't work!

 

[bigbamboo]

In short, certainly yes, if that win rate is 20-30%.


Most certainly yes. Cuirassiers are kind of an instawin button on pangaea if you get there. And I'd think you get there a lot even if you blindly play that strategy and use "cheap tricks" like city gifting efficiently.

In vintage BIC style a very confusing post. Seriously you think you can't win 20% on deity pangaea? Or do you mean that you habitually reload? I don't.

I'm sure there are several posters who I'd bet win closer to 100% than 50%. Lain, drewisfat, CarpoolKaraoke, pedro78 come first into mind. Even I can win 20% on pangaea I think, but not interested in playing currently really (especially pangaea).

How often does Lain go construction? Not a lot. What does that mean? I do not know. Concerning his perceived (I say perceived because I do not know, but he did stream and never realoaded) winrate, maybe that he thinks it's not the most reliable way to win?

In no-SL (no Save/Load) and random-map competitions, a 20%–30% win rate is just the average for participants. In our last competition, 12 games were streamed live by referees, and two players achieved 11/12 and 8/12 wins, respectively. When all players replayed the maps they initially failed, they achieved a 100% win rate. (That season’s maps were considered relatively easy by all players, compared to the much harder maps from the previous season.) Our competitions are all streamed live, and you can check them out on Bilibili.

In our usual same-map practice games, it’s rare to encounter a map that can’t be beaten. Even with limited SL, our junior members can achieve a win rate above 50% on Deity difficulty. Regarding SL usage, our community often advises new players in casual matches not to use SL to change the outcome of a single battle, but rather to use it for decision-making. Once they’ve gained enough experience, they can try no-SL.

So, I’m a bit puzzled—if a 20%–30% no-SL win rate isn’t considered high for the community average, maybe we need an AI to solve this issue