Deity woes

[idjit]

I keep reading how folks are saying deity is easily won once you survive the first 50 turns. For me, the first 50 turns are the easy part - it's the mid/late game I can't seem to win.

I've got a particular map I've been replaying to try out different strats and build orders and I keep running into the same thing: I can't keep up or ever overcome the deity AI in science or civics no matter what I do. By about 1500 AD the AI has built cristo, broadway and the sydney opera house (!) while fielding mech infantry. I know this cuz the game tells me when those wonders are built and I have a city state near me that spawned without luxuries so I've got mech infantry ripping through my territory and parking on my districts keeping them perma-pillaged. At 1500 AD I just can't seem to be able to deal with this.

If I focus commerce/industry, I'm 2 eras behind. Yeah, I can build muskets in 2 turns but the AI has "army" mechs. And my civic progress will suck so I can't "army" my own guys.

If I focus on science, my cogs and civics are 2 eras behind. It doesn't do me a lot of good to be able to technically make mech infantry in 1500 AD when it takes me 30 turns to produce one.

Culture is the same way - if I focus it, my science and cogs will suck and I STILL can't get any GWAMs and I'm still finishing up districts by 1500 AD.

If I take a more balanced approach it feels like I'm about 1 era (or so) behind in cogs/science/civics until I lose to some victory condition (and I am *very* good with my spies).

A 1500 opera house just floors me. That not only means that the AI had the culture to unlock it well before that time, but it also had the science AND the industry to unlock/build clustered power plants as well. Even worse - the AI tends to only improve luxury tiles (!). I get that the deity AI is buffed with insane bonuses but at least in civ 5 you could snipe the occasional victory with solid gameplay and a little luck.

I'm not clever enough to counter the AI's deity bonuses in civ 6...any suggestions? (Assume the map won't let you faceroll your neighbors militarily)

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

My deity strategy is to immediately get 3-5 warriors and as many archers as I can muster before the AI declares war on me. Then I kill those civs that declared on me. I check the overall ranking often and if I think one AI is getting too far ahead, I will launch a pillage war to slow them down. I try not to take cities once walls are up.

You have to aggressively try to slow down the AI if you want to have any hope of catching up.

This is obviously harder to do on continent/ island plate maps.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sounds like fun. Post the map.

Also when fishing for solutions be more specific. You need to pinpoint where you're astray.

 

[idjit]

Sounds like fun. Post the map.

Also when fishing for solutions be more specific. You need to pinpoint where you're astray.

My deity strategy is to immediately get 3-5 warriors and as many archers as I can muster before the AI declares war on me. Then I kill those civs that declared on me. I check the overall ranking often and if I think one AI is getting too far ahead, I will launch a pillage war to slow them down. I try not to take cities once walls are up.

You have to aggressively try to slow down the AI if you want to have any hope of catching up.

This is obviously harder to do on continent/ island plate maps.

Well, it's all standard/continents. I think I picked balanced resources tho. But anyway, there is only one neighbor who is completely unassailable.

 

[idjit]

Sounds like fun. Post the map.

Also when fishing for solutions be more specific. You need to pinpoint where you're astray.

Well, I'm not exactly looking for a solution to a specific problem, except catching up to deity AI. I have the game save at turn 0 so let me see if I can figure out how to post it.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

How many cities do you have by, say, 500 BC? Going wide is important in Civ VI. You're not sitting at 4 or 5 cities, right?

 

[idjit]

How many cities do you have by, say, 500 BC? Going wide is important in Civ VI. You're not sitting at 4 or 5 cities, right?

9 is the most I can squeeze in with the dirt I've been given.

 

[idjit]

Sounds like fun. Post the map.

Also when fishing for solutions be more specific. You need to pinpoint where you're astray.

Here's that save file. I'm curious how others can fare on it. I like trying to dig myself out of subpar starts..because I like pain.

France/deity/standard speed/continents/balanced resources

I found this map challenging because even though I'm not isolated on an island, I kinda may as well be. When you load it you'll see what I mean.

 

[Francis Xavier]

Just posted this elsewhere, but you might find value in checking out my let's play - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-lets-play-cleopatra-egyptian-supremacy.605844/

It's on deity and I ended up with no neighbors so had to catch up to the AI the old fashioned way peacefully. I try as much as possible to explain the reasons for each move.

If you like I could play out the first hundred turns of your save and post the video. My guess is you may not be beelining appropriately and it sounds like you might be actually over teching in your game.

 

[idjit]

Just posted this elsewhere, but you might find value in checking out my let's play - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-lets-play-cleopatra-egyptian-supremacy.605844/

It's on deity and I ended up with no neighbors so had to catch up to the AI the old fashioned way peacefully. I try as much as possible to explain the reasons for each move.

If you like I could play out the first hundred turns of your save and post the video. My guess is you may not be beelining appropriately and it sounds like you might be actually over teching in your game.

I'll give your thingy a watchie watch. I've been very careful beelining my civs/techs so as not to inflate my district cost. If I do that, (commerce hub -> IZ) and then build campuses when they feel reasonable, I'm already two eras behind.

 

[idjit]

Played the map again and the opera house was gone at 1400 AD..lol.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'll try out the save later tomorrow most likely, have some errands first.

 

[idjit]

I guess I kinda sorta-ish figured out more or less what I was doing wrong - not building districts fast enough. I watched that video (thanks btw for linking it) and saw that I was just too slow with my opening. I didn't like housing caps and unimproved tiles so I would baby my first core cities until I felt they could grow and build districts in a "reasonable" time.

So I'm playing this France map again for like the zillionth time - this time I did two things differently:
1) started banging out settlers at 2 pop (I used to wait for colonization) from whatever city could produce them reasonably (with gold and chops)
2) dropping either harbors or comhubs immediately into trade routes, investing hammers into pre-building workers until teched

But I also did something else I had completely overlooked: making lots of cheap crap units and upgrading them, saving me hammers later on. There is a tradeoff here of course: sacrificing early infrastructure for more units than you need at the moment, but policy cards make it a little easier to do so. For example, I never built quadriremes EVAR because the unit sucks. What doesn't suck is upgrading 10 of them into frigates the moment you get square sailing.

Regardless of being DOW'd twice, this is the strongest game yet I have played. I still feel like I'm pretty far behind the AI - especially with civics, but at least my science isn't as nearly behind as it was.

I use Ruhr Valley as my benchmark as it's really the only thing I (personally) can remember with any certainty without having to write anything down. My benchmark is unlocking it at 1000 AD with about 25-30-ish turns to build. Seems to be my average. But this time, I unlocked it a little after 900 AD so there is definitely improvement. Plus I'm not broke, and I have a rather large, and more or less contemporary military. So thanks guys for helping me out.

 

[Gtdead]

You are going to be left behind early, and pick up the pace later. The AI loves crappy cities with theater districts and holy sites. Once you get your 8-10 cities running with factories and universities, grab the rationalism policy for science and the other one that gives culture per district, you have basically beaten the game.

You can then just tech tanks and destroy everything. Sometimes an AI will snowball and become dominant enough to be trouble, especially with religion victory. You need to keep an eye on the victory progress tab so you can prioritize killing them.

 

[Francis Xavier]

Glad the video helped you and you're doing better now!

 

[elitetroops]

I played your start to turn 100.

Some early excitement when a barb scout showed up in the south about turn 4 while my warrior was heading north. The barb camp was in the southwest and started spawning a unit per turn around turn 7-8. By turn 15 it had spawned 5 warriors and 3 slingers. The standard 3 slinger opening with upgrade into archers took care of these. I was a bit surprised I didn't lose a single unit. The barbs could have easily finished my fortified warrior if they had wanted to. After this I cleared another barb camp NW of capital and proceeded with my 3 archers+warrior to conquer Kandy and La Venta.

I left Brussels, as I considered trying some new strategy here. Normally I avoid wonders, but with France+Brussels I reconed it could be worth it. Then I realized it's still only +50% production with France+Brussels+policy, and the med+ren policy requires I research Divine Right, while there is no way I have the Industrial policy in time for Ruhr... Oh well, maybe I'll build Alhambra and go for domination. At least Brussels has been helpful by killing tundra barbs.

I spammed some settlers, placed 3 campuses very early, then some commerce hubs and industrial zones. By t100 I have 10 cities, 4 campuses, 3 commerce hubs and 2 industrial zones, plus two conquered holy sites. Some more industrial zones are soon built. I'll have Industrialization as soon as 3 workshops are up, then build some factories. Currently I have the highest research with 74 science/turn, Gilgamesh is a close 2nd at 70. I haven't met everyone yet, but I'm pretty sure nobody is ahead of Gilgabro and his Ziggurats. Culture is still quite weak, though not far behind most of the AI. Only Gilgamesh has a clear lead over me with 41 culture/turn. I probably should have picked GoToS instead of Divine Spark. But thanks to Divine Spark I'll recruit Galileo in 5 turns and can use him in the 5 mountain spot (where I'm currently also building a campus). I could use the 1250 science for military techs, should give me instant Metal Casting, Or I could use it to head towards Electricity. Haven't decided yet. Maybe I try the domination route, haven't played domination yet. Actually, using Galileo for a slingshot towards Cavalry could be very strong if I prebuild a bunch of horsemen...

Here's an overview of my empire and the science rating of all AI I've met:

Spoiler :

Overall this start has been somewhat slow since there was no close AI to conquer, and the early barb activity also slowed me down, but I think I'm already in a very strong winning position.

 

[danhynes]

How do you bring up the screen that shows all the opponents and their techs researched and science per turn?

 

[Rossticles]

How do you bring up the screen that shows all the opponents and their techs researched and science per turn?

 

[Rossticles]

I've won on Deity twice. The key seems to be having an early army. Early AI is super aggro and if they see you as weak they will swarm you. Even having a couple slingers on your border will deter potential attackers.

 

[idjit]

I played your start to turn 100.

Some early excitement when a barb scout showed up in the south about turn 4 while my warrior was heading north. The barb camp was in the southwest and started spawning a unit per turn around turn 7-8. By turn 15 it had spawned 5 warriors and 3 slingers. The standard 3 slinger opening with upgrade into archers took care of these. I was a bit surprised I didn't lose a single unit. The barbs could have easily finished my fortified warrior if they had wanted to. After this I cleared another barb camp NW of capital and proceeded with my 3 archers+warrior to conquer Kandy and La Venta.

I left Brussels, as I considered trying some new strategy here. Normally I avoid wonders, but with France+Brussels I reconed it could be worth it. Then I realized it's still only +50% production with France+Brussels+policy, and the med+ren policy requires I research Divine Right, while there is no way I have the Industrial policy in time for Ruhr... Oh well, maybe I'll build Alhambra and go for domination. At least Brussels has been helpful by killing tundra barbs.

I spammed some settlers, placed 3 campuses very early, then some commerce hubs and industrial zones. By t100 I have 10 cities, 4 campuses, 3 commerce hubs and 2 industrial zones, plus two conquered holy sites. Some more industrial zones are soon built. I'll have Industrialization as soon as 3 workshops are up, then build some factories. Currently I have the highest research with 74 science/turn, Gilgamesh is a close 2nd at 70. I haven't met everyone yet, but I'm pretty sure nobody is ahead of Gilgabro and his Ziggurats. Culture is still quite weak, though not far behind most of the AI. Only Gilgamesh has a clear lead over me with 41 culture/turn. I probably should have picked GoToS instead of Divine Spark. But thanks to Divine Spark I'll recruit Galileo in 5 turns and can use him in the 5 mountain spot (where I'm currently also building a campus). I could use the 1250 science for military techs, should give me instant Metal Casting, Or I could use it to head towards Electricity. Haven't decided yet. Maybe I try the domination route, haven't played domination yet. Actually, using Galileo for a slingshot towards Cavalry could be very strong if I prebuild a bunch of horsemen...

Here's an overview of my empire and the science rating of all AI I've met:

Spoiler :

Overall this start has been somewhat slow since there was no close AI to conquer, and the early barb activity also slowed me down, but I think I'm already in a very strong winning position.

Um, wow...ok, looks like I need to learn to play haha. It is kinda weird to see the same map but with what someone else did with it lol. You got very lucky with the barbs...see those horses south east of paris? I've had 5 horsemen by T25 swarming my capital haha (if you scout southeast first, a camp will spawn).

A lot of places where you placed your cities is where I placed mine, it's just mine were a little later. The game where I settled very fast was where I clustered them close around paris - even the junk dirt up between Kandy and Paris (which surprisingly turned out to be a great production city).

Did you place your campuses as the very first thing built in those cities or did you build other stuff before them?

Also, this isn't a very domination friendly map. Thanks for posting this feedback, I really appreciate it...when I first settle a city I go straight to commerce or harbors because if I don't I'll go broke with a standing army (for deterrence - which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't).