Deity Spaceship in under 200 turns - a brief guide

[bigwinw]

This is an awesome guide! I was wondering if you have any shots of your final tech tree. If you had them along the way that would also be cool to see. Just trying to get an idea how much you skip. Do you basically Bee-line all the way with a few off shoots?

 

[E66man]

On deity they start with 2 settlers, so no waiting involved you just need the army.

Do they also get a free Worker? Martin didn't mention it but I assume it goes without saying you should also be trying to capture one from your first war.

 

[aimlessgun]

Do they also get a free Worker? Martin didn't mention it but I assume it goes without saying you should also be trying to capture one from your first war.

Yeah. I think the deity start is 2 settlers, 1 worker, 1 scout, 2 or 3 warriors. Capturing a worker early is incredibly key. After getting to used to sniping workers, I played some games where I didn't allow myself to do it, and it felt sooo slow.

 

[Martin Alvito]

When and how do you get workers and how can you do this early ICS without getting declared on?

I farmed Monty for Workers. I stole his around turn 10, won the war, and stole two more just after turn 60. I picked up the fifth Worker from a barb camp, and built the sixth in the capital.

By this point I've disbanded them. After the Railroads went up, there wasn't any point in keeping them around.

What size do you grow your cap to while spamming warriors? is it better to just stop it size 2 and swap to a hill for faster warriors? or is it better to let it keep working food to grow as large as it can?

Grow baby grow. I let it get to 4. I aggressively work Food tiles, then switch to Hammers when I'm ready to stop growing. You may have to live with a size 3 cap if you don't have something like that Cows tile in the radius.

You mentioned building siege units to help keep border cities safe, but I don't see any in your picture. It looks like you only have a Knight and an AA gun (people really build those?) guarding your whole empire. Did you sell off your army at the end of the game to get extra cash? How did the military situation play out for you in this game after you attacked your first opponent? Presumably they wanted revenge at some point...

You can't see the shooting war with China in the bottom right hand corner (it started up for the fourth time that turn). I've got four or five Rifles (the legacy Warriors) and three Cannon down there that you can't see. If I'd had the cash, I'd have upgraded further. (I could have gotten the cash with a loan, but what I had was good enough.)

Monty wasn't really a problem. He had two cities for most of the game, one was up in the ice, and I bought up the Horse tile there so he had zero strategic resources. He tried to take me on turn 110 with Archers and Spears. It wasn't pretty, although he did manage to sneak his Settler through my lines.

China was more of a problem, but I had siege that was a generation better than her armies until the very end. Only Washington made it to Industrial that game. Not sure what Genghis was doing; he was the clear runaway, and he apparently couldn't be bothered to build Science buildings.

Quick note on fighting China - Chu-Ko-Nus are evil. You pretty much need to Trebuchet those things and keep your army out of range. The Longswords didn't really become useful until Knights and Muskets started showing up.

The AA gun was a gift from Dublin, which allied me during the early war with Monty. I was pretty excited, since I had nothing but Longswords at that point.

This is an awesome guide! I was wondering if you have any shots of your final tech tree. If you had them along the way that would also be cool to see. Just trying to get an idea how much you skip. Do you basically Bee-line all the way with a few off shoots?

I either am working on Combustion or just finished it. I skip everything on the bottom, using a turn of research in Fertilizer and Metallurgy to avoid getting them from Research Agreements. Once I had all the spaceship techs, I went back and started researching that portion of the tree.

 

[atteSmythe]

Built a spaceship without knowing the principles of combustion. Lordy.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Wow, just realized that I could be getting another +15 Happy with Humanism. Might be worth paying the upkeep on those Cultural allies after all...

 

[iggymnrr]

Wow, just realized that I could be getting another +15 Happy with Humanism.

You must have spaced out.

 

[grdolph]

First of all congrats for this achievement!

What would you do if close civs don't have a second city?
Do you wait as long as it takes for the to build it?
Is it so terrible to capture their main city (which you can't raze)?

How would you handle such a situation?
(I'm playing Emperor level and Greeks who are close don't have second city...)

 

[jorissimo]

One question: how did you get your money without any TP's?
By wealth production or by ripping off the AI?

 

[Slowpoke]

One question: how did you get your money without any TP's?
By wealth production or by ripping off the AI?

Wealth sucks, so I'm assuming he got lucky with a lot of lux resouces and sold em off.

 

[HermannLombard]

What would you do if close civs don't have a second city?

As mentioned above, at Deity the AI starts with two settlers, so no waiting.

 

[Martin Alvito]

What would you do if close civs don't have a second city?
Do you wait as long as it takes for the to build it?
Is it so terrible to capture their main city (which you can't raze)?

If you're on Emperor, time isn't such a factor. I'd recommend pure ICS at the start in that case. I'd probably build a Warrior before growing rather than a Scout to help cover the Worker theft, but either will probably do.

Ironically, you can probably win faster on Immortal/Deity than Emperor.

If you must take the capital, you have to turn it into a permanent Settler pump. Otherwise it will grow and grow and grow and soak up your Happiness surplus early on.

One question: how did you get your money without any TP's?
By wealth production or by ripping off the AI?

I sell everything. Even Horses and any surplus Iron. You don't have to do anything as cheap as loot treasuries, then declare war to cancel the deals, but you do have to wring every last dime out of deals and renew them as soon as possible. This is part of why finding the other continent fast is so important; it makes Research Agreements both possible and self-financing.

You can safely sell Open Borders to anyone not on your continent.

 

[avl8]

Great game, ur genius, Martin!

Btw, what policies have you bought in this game?

 

[Martin Alvito]

I took Rationalism, Secularism and Freedom. The fourth policy should have been Humanism.

If you could get five policies fast enough, you could go for Scientific Revolution and the two free techs. You'd have to Monument spam after Universities go up and maintain Cultural allies to pull it off in time. Which was better would probably depend on your tech situation. Anyone other than Babylon or France probably should gun for Scientific Revolution, because that's a lot of turns saved if you aren't popping out crazy Babylonian Great Scientists.

It should be noted that I never rush bought anything other than the Factory and Spaceship Factory in the capital. I had to build the Caravel the hard way in the Capital during the Golden Age (5 turns). The only things I used cash on were Maritimes, a single Cultural ally, unit upgrades and Research Agreements.

As far as resale goes: I had 5 Gold, a Marble and a Whales available for resale. I don't think that's a lot in a fifteen city empire. I had a decent supply of Horses - 10 or so, I want to say.

 

[Rittmeyer]

Stuff like "rushing with 4 warriors" really make me think that there's something very wrong either with me or with the people who are saying "deity is too easy".

you just CAN'T rush with warriors on deity in my CiV copy, either that or I'm completely missing some point.

 

[avl8]

Did u really miss Liberty/Meritocrazy?
And what about +50% GPP from Freedom tree?

 

[E66man]

you just CAN'T rush with warriors on deity in my CiV copy, either that or I'm completely missing some point.

I suspect it becomes absolutely vital to plan your attack so that every Warrior can attack the city in the same turn, *and* you plan your lurking well enough that you aren't getting bombarded by the city before you can launch that attack. If the target city hasn't expanded much into the 2nd ring yet, this should be doable given the constraints on movement posed by the local terrain.

 

[Rittmeyer]

I suspect it becomes absolutely vital to plan your attack so that every Warrior can attack the city in the same turn, *and* you plan your lurking well enough that you aren't getting bombarded by the city before you can launch that attack. If the target city hasn't expanded much into the 2nd ring yet, this should be doable given the constraints on movement posed by the local terrain.

In my games the 4-5 warriors + 1-3 chariot archers of the AI will be all around their city, making such a strategy pretty much usuless. Even IF you take that first city in the first turn, you'll lose all your units to their counter attack.

 

[Slowpoke]

In my games the 4-5 warriors + 1-3 chariot archers of the AI will be all around their city, making such a strategy pretty much usuless. Even IF you take that first city in the first turn, you'll lose all your units to their counter attack.

Oh yeah, you have to declare first and kill their reinforcements, or go for broke and hope to take the city in 2 turns. It also is heavily luck dependent. If alex or suleiman is your neighbor you cannot warrior rush I think.

 

[Martin Alvito]

In my games the 4-5 warriors + 1-3 chariot archers of the AI will be all around their city, making such a strategy pretty much usuless. Even IF you take that first city in the first turn, you'll lose all your units to their counter attack.

Let's see:

- Removing Warriors is as simple as getting them to come out of the city's radius before you assault the city. Some leaders will do this for you. For instance, Monty mounted a Warrior attack on my capital around turn 20 in this game. I was positioned where I could see it coming, retreated to Rough tiles, and let his Warriors suicide on mine. After that, he was left with his garrison in the capital and a single Warrior in his second city. That Warrior came out, killed one of my Warriors on the turn I surrounded the city, and was immediately counterattacked and slain.

- AI Chariot Archers are very easy to kill, because the AI tends to leave them in places where you can counterattack them. It appears that some AIs start with them, while others do not. Know which AIs start with them, so that you can locate them and plan to deal with them.

- When you want to move in, you need to surround the city at a distance of three tiles, then attack from as many directions simultaneously as possible. You also need your units at full strength. It is helpful to have promotions from having killed enemy units; you burn these after an attack on the city to avoid dying to city shots before you can retreat.

- A spare Warrior is also handy, because you can retreat a Warrior that eats city shots/Archer shots and still attack from that spot. Six Warriors is a lot better than five if you can swing it.

- You do have to declare early, but you should be doing that on the turn you Worker steal anyway.

On neighbors: Alex and Darius are by far the hardest to Warrior rush. You need an extra Warrior. Monty is not easy either, because he spams Jaguars like crazy. The civs with Archers (like England) are generally the easiest. I imagine that Babylon would be an absolute nightmare to rush, though. Those 8 point Archers will score a kill every turn.

Did u really miss Liberty/Meritocrazy?
And what about +50% GPP from Freedom tree?

I skipped Liberty entirely. The +50% GPP policy is a great policy, and I'd absolutely take it with France. For Babylon, there are better alternatives since you already have +100% GPP on Scientists. The two don't stack, and so it turns out that building Hagia Sophia (which yields up a lousy +2 GPP/Scientist) is essentially just as effective.