Deity victory analysis post fall 2013 patch

Johnpecan

Warlord
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Jan 16, 2008
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There are several threads about specific victory conditions since the fall patch. I wanted to focus specifically on standard paced, deity victory conditions in this thread because I feel that at least with my experience of going from Immortal to Deity, there are certain victory conditions that you can pull off in Immortal but in Deity require a lot of luck.

I'm splitting them up between and warring and peaceful (except domination of course) because I feel they are quite different in approach. I'm also rating them on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the most difficult, or in other words, requiring a lot of luck and 10 being the easiest, or able to consistently do without luck.

Domination, 3:
Very difficult. Maybe with Genghis/Wu on a pangea or rushing frigates on a archipalego might work. Then hope another civ hasn't run away and bomb/nuke the last few civs.

Science peaceful, 7:
Since the AI doesn't favor the science building line, the human has an advantage everytime a new science is buliding is built. Also I find the hubble telescope relatively easy to get even behind the AI 10% in tech. As long as you can get 3-4 decent cities out with an army to protect it and not killing your early science, this is a pretty solid victory condition.

Science warring, 9:
This is my favorite way to win. Very similar to a peaceful science victory, but normally have 1-2 wars where I try to secure some extra land for a science boost.
I find the best time for this is right around the artillery/Great war bombers phase. Artillery/bombers means you should be able to take cities regardless of annoying terrain and with the human vastly scales with range over the AI, so it's pretty much the best time to go to war. Pretty much, the more range a unit has, the better it can be used to exploit the AI in war, even if they have similar units.
With Venice, it's super strong in the medeival/renaissance time to buy a deity city state with all their delicious units and take out some nearby cities.

Diplo peaceful, 1:
Nearly impossible. Even if somehow the human miraculously gets the forbidden palace, sets the religion & ideology for the voting bonus, the deity AI is in general just too hungry for land, taking out half the city states and making a peaceful diplo victory nearly impossible. If you're lucky, it's possible enough city states are alive but very unlikely, need a lot of luck to hope city states don't get overtaken and that you're able to scure world religion/ideology. Also have to generate a butt ton of cash and hope the AI is too stupid to buy out city states (which they are for the most part, even after the patch, AIs will sit on 30,000+ gold and not retake CS allies).

Diplo warring, 4:
Doing everything like peaceful game except have to liberate/snipe a few CS.

Cultural peaceful, 1:
Need a lot of luck here. The AI will likely deny most/all of the early cultural wonders (globe theater, sistine etc). It's really hard to overtake the AI culturally with only 3-4 cities if this is the case. Also, f there is a runaway civ their culture will likely be so high that you can't catch up to them peacefully, especially without the early culture wonders.

Cultural warring, 5:
Similar to a peaceful cultural victory, if there's a runaway civ or you're denied all the early cultural wonders it's quite difficult. By attacking the highest cultural civ you not only kill their defense to your tourism (their cultutre), but you also boost your tourism. A strategic war to take out a high culture civ can actually make this game very winnable, depending on the proximity and military of the civ going for a cultural win.

General observations:
-Science is the only way I find I can consistently have a chance at winning peacefully. The others peaceful VCs require a lot of luck.
-Having at least 1 strategic war helps me in every single victory condition. I always plan on at least 1.
 
So Tech to RA and Nukes and win with a few turns left on the game?

Sounds kinda boring.

I do not play Diety, I play Immortal and I have not yet won a game post-patch. I am actually getting very frustrated.

I am a Domination or pure Score/Turn kinda guy though.
 
I usually play on Emperor, but now I played Immortal with Zulu. I have won games on deity, but on deity you just have do pretty much the same stuff every time to win and I dont find that fun. In this game my plan was to go Domination, but that just didnt happen. I went autocracy and won science victory. I captured couple of cities from tech leader Korea to make sure he doesnt win science victory.

I in fact think that on higher difficulty levels Autocracy might the best ideology, mainly because of "Industrial Espionage" -policy (Spies steal technologies at twice the normal rate.) and best happiness policy "Militarism" (+2 Local Happiness from every Barracks, Armory and Military Academy.)

On higher difficulty levels its important to make AIs fight each other. Just keep them busy destroying each other while you keep building your Empire.
 
I in fact think that on higher difficulty levels Autocracy might the best ideology, mainly because of "Industrial Espionage" -policy (Spies steal technologies at twice the normal rate.) and best happiness policy "Militarism" (+2 Local Happiness from every Barracks, Armory and Military Academy.)

Yes, if I'm behind on tech on deity, it's one of the best.

On higher difficulty levels its important to make AIs fight each other. Just keep them busy destroying each other while you keep building your Empire.

Yes, to a certain extent. On deity however, on several occasions I've bribed a lot of people only to see a 10 turn war and then get dogpiled because of weaker military.
 
Yes, to a certain extent. On deity however, on several occasions I've bribed a lot of people only to see a 10 turn war and then get dogpiled because of weaker military.

That is certainly true. On my game I had pretty big army from start mainly because I was playing Zulu. I was using my units to hunt barbarians to get culture and experience, but stayed away from early wars. It is certainly true that capturing cities before artillery and GW bombers is pain in the butt. Early conquest is pretty much impossible (at least for me) in Immortal/Deity.
 
Cultural peaceful, 1:
Need a lot of luck here. The AI will likely deny most/all of the early cultural wonders (globe theater, sistine etc). It's really hard to overtake the AI culturally with only 3-4 cities if this is the case. Also, f there is a runaway civ their culture will likely be so high that you can't catch up to them peacefully, especially without the early culture wonders.

This is pretty map dependent - I'd put even up to 4-5 if you play on something like Large Islands. You can essentially stay on your island with only 3-4 cities. The AI does not expand as quickly over water, and you need to worry less militarily, as it's less likely to attack over water (and horsehockeytier at doing so) - and plus ship upgrades go along the cultural half (i.e. to archaeology), so you don't need to worry about getting out-teched on the military front.

I don't usually have a problem getting the Sistine chapel, as it's right after universities, which I beeline to, though granted, if another civ gets it, you're basically SoL, as their culture will get massive. Or the Louvre, since even on water, the AI doesn't seem that prone to exploration. Globe Theatre is the hardest, though I prefer Pisa even for cultural victories (also hard to get). Uffuzi is 50/50.

You really have to be ready to spam Archaeologists as soon as you hit the tech as well - even if the AI gets there before you, he generally takes longer to churn them out.

Never let them pass historical culture sites (or whatever it is), because they'll likely have more wonders, and it will let them boost their culture more than you. And try and stop the worlds fair/international games from passing, as someone will have more cities and more production than you.

But yeah, on pangea, it's a lot more difficult - the AI is much more competent with expansion and warfare.
 
This is pretty map dependent - I'd put even up to 4-5 if you play on something like Large Islands. You can essentially stay on your island with only 3-4 cities. The AI does not expand as quickly over water, and you need to worry less militarily, as it's less likely to attack over water (and horsehockeytier at doing so) - and plus ship upgrades go along the cultural half (i.e. to archaeology), so you don't need to worry about getting out-teched on the military front.

I don't usually have a problem getting the Sistine chapel, as it's right after universities, which I beeline to, though granted, if another civ gets it, you're basically SoL, as their culture will get massive. Or the Louvre, since even on water, the AI doesn't seem that prone to exploration. Globe Theatre is the hardest, though I prefer Pisa even for cultural victories (also hard to get). Uffuzi is 50/50.

You really have to be ready to spam Archaeologists as soon as you hit the tech as well - even if the AI gets there before you, he generally takes longer to churn them out.

Never let them pass historical culture sites (or whatever it is), because they'll likely have more wonders, and it will let them boost their culture more than you. And try and stop the worlds fair/international games from passing, as someone will have more cities and more production than you.

But yeah, on pangea, it's a lot more difficult - the AI is much more competent with expansion and warfare.

That's a really good analysis. I usually only play on random maps but I will try this out. An Isolated start teching NC->Universities->Sistine->Archaeology would be pretty strong.

Does every civ start on their own island for this map type? If so, the chance for a runaways civ greatly diminishes which I agree would greatly increase the human player's chances.
 
That's a really good analysis. I usually only play on random maps but I will try this out. An Isolated start teching NC->Universities->Sistine->Archaeology would be pretty strong.

Does every civ start on their own island for this map type? If so, the chance for a runaways civ greatly diminishes which I agree would greatly increase the human player's chances.

Generally, yes - I'd say 80 - 90% of the time, you'll end up by yourself or with one citystate. Generally, though, there's like one extra large island that has two civs on it. Sometimes, it's you, and if that happens, it's pretty unlucky, and can definitely cause problems (though not always - the islands tend to be snaky, so it doesn't always cause huge problems - i.e you can each stay on your side). But usually, it's an isolated start in the best sense - isolated from the military units and 'land coveting' but still able to do plenty of trade routes.

I would also open sailing pretty early, as those early trade routes are essentially +4 science on deity.

If I've saved enough cash to immediately buy most of my universities once I open education (hopefully the case), I'll often build Oxford College and use the free tech for acoustics while I start blowing through some the lesser techs - either immediately towards Archaeology and Refrigeration for hotels, or depending on my start, sometimes I'll backpedal for towards metal casting first, as archaeologists can take forever to build without a workshop (also I'll usually try and generate at least one or two GEs to grab wonders, then back to GSs to speed to the internet). Though that +3 production in cities social policy in exploration is often worth it and can help a bit. If it's a really good start, you can even try for Pisa/Globe theatre, but they're definitely off the rest of the tech chain.

You can usually steal banking with your spy. If no other has opened Aesthetics, it's worth grabbing architecture, as you might be able to get Uffuzi (and/or even the Porcelain Tower if no one's opened rationalism).

And, of course, because of your tech priorities (Archaeology, Refrigeration for hotels), you'll likely be the first to frigates and submarines. Meaning, if something goes wrong, you're well set up for it turn into "Cultural Warring", really, really easily ;)
 
Diplo peaceful should be extremely easy unless you have Ghengis/Attila on your map or that some AI with a lot of CS allies gets into multiple wars.

I suspect you just need to focus more on small empire with heavy science. Freedom literally trivializes DV. If I can manage the aggression away from me, I can typically keep 13-16 CS allies even with Greece+Siam and another different "peaceful" runaway that dumps thousands.

Each spy can typically retain one distant CS. Each trade route can retain one closer CS. The few others are gold dumps but if you play only 2-3 city, it's significantly easier to have gold overflow. This is not BnW anymore where your GPT scales significantly more wide than tall. The bulk of your gold should come from intl trade routes and are further enhanced by things like Monarchy, Commerce opener, gold yielding wonders in cap.

Cultural peaceful is definitely in a niche of its own. Especially for a player jumping in difficulty as it is really all about jumping ahead in early renaissance which is difficult to do, even for experienced players
 
Domination, 3:
Very difficult. Maybe with Genghis/Wu on a pangea or rushing frigates on a archipalego might work. Then hope another civ hasn't run away and bomb/nuke the last few civs.

Domination is easy with anyone. I started a Diety/Mara/pangea for a "peaceful" game to fully enjoy Morroco.. and now it's turned into me taking over the world.. again... I've only just entered Med. era and I own 7/12 capitals, and was declared on by all the AI civs for general doucebaggery. Not even sure if i'm going to finish this map, I've pretty much devastated all but 1 civ, no one will ever be my friend after my parade through their lands, and my income is ******** because of peace settlements.. I can buy new CS alliey every 4 turns.

Hardest part of Diety for me, is not killing everyone that is beating me to any victory type.
 
Try diplo with greece. Fortunately AIs are still stupid enough that they don't push CS alliences hard enough
 
Diplo peaceful should be extremely easy unless you have Ghengis/Attila on your map or that some AI with a lot of CS allies gets into multiple wars.
On deity? This has not been my experience at all. Getting ally CS is not the issue. The issue is that by the time the first diplo victory vote is up at least 6/16 of the CS have been conquered. Which means you need Globalization/world religion/world ideology/Forbidden palace OR you need to liberate a bunch of CS... Which is why peaceful diplo requires so much luck.
 
Domination is easy with anyone. I started a Diety/Mara/pangea for a "peaceful" game to fully enjoy Morroco.. and now it's turned into me taking over the world.. again... I've only just entered Med. era and I own 7/12 capitals, and was declared on by all the AI civs for general doucebaggery. Not even sure if i'm going to finish this map, I've pretty much devastated all but 1 civ, no one will ever be my friend after my parade through their lands, and my income is ******** because of peace settlements.. I can buy new CS alliey every 4 turns.

Hardest part of Diety for me, is not killing everyone that is beating me to any victory type.
I'm curious what kind of start you had. One of the hardest statistical limitations of deity is the early game teching / unit production so I find that hard to believe you would be able to do that consistently.
 
On deity? This has not been my experience at all. Getting ally CS is not the issue. The issue is that by the time the first diplo victory vote is up at least 6/16 of the CS have been conquered. Which means you need Globalization/world religion/world ideology/Forbidden palace OR you need to liberate a bunch of CS... Which is why peaceful diplo requires so much luck.

Sometimes civs are willing to give up captured city states in trades. Not always, but it's worth a shot. Otherwise, even on deity late game wars aren't too hard unless they're with the runaway or you're still really behind in tech. Doing a quick war here or there to liberate that last city state I don't think violates a peaceful playstyle. If you have control of a bunch of city states for a while, the world religion and world ideology isn't too hard to get. Forbidden palace might be, but pre-patch I constantly had a huge surplus of votes when it came to diplo victory, and I don't think the patch increased the vote count enough to stop me from winning diplomatically on a lot of these games.
 
On deity? This has not been my experience at all. Getting ally CS is not the issue. The issue is that by the time the first diplo victory vote is up at least 6/16 of the CS have been conquered. Which means you need Globalization/world religion/world ideology/Forbidden palace OR you need to liberate a bunch of CS... Which is why peaceful diplo requires so much luck.

The required vote count goes down each time a CS is conquered.

All you need is all CS's and a diplomat in all caps + Globalization to win a diplomatic victory.

Diplo requires no luck, it only requires good gpt and some spies. I would give it a 10 for any civ like Greece, Venice, or Arabia, and a 9 for all others.
 
The required vote count goes down each time a CS is conquered.

That is only half correct. A CS is worth 2 votes (by the time a diplo victory is available). If a CS is conquered, the total number of votes only goes down by 1. So if you're going for a diplo victory, and half the CS are captured, you have to liberate some of them, which is why the initial difficulty of a peaceful diplo requires luck on deity ;)
 
Peaceful diety game? WTH? I don't think it's possible.

Diplo win on diety isn't luck, it's easy, so easy, it shouldnt count as a diety win.
 
Peaceful diety game? WTH? I don't think it's possible.

Diplo win on diety isn't luck, it's easy, so easy, it shouldnt count as a diety win.

After the patch where you need 7 more votes? I beg to differ for reasons stated above.
 
Im playing some games with the settings below
-Huge, Highland, Diety, Marathon, Ancient Era, 12 Civs.
-No barbs, no ruins.
-Domination Victory.
-Completely kill.

Any1 can try it ?
 
I'm curious what kind of start you had. One of the hardest statistical limitations of deity is the early game teching / unit production so I find that hard to believe you would be able to do that consistently.

One of the hardest things to believe in is that many people are smart. Some of them find deity too easy and played (and won) with "no trades", OCC domination and other limitations during deity challenge series.
 
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