Diety Gameplay

[Ermak-]

Hi everyone. I am multiplayer expert player, but lately started messing around with Diety singleplayer. I don't cook sets. Usually it is contients or fractal on eveything standart with all vic conditions on. I find the gameplay to be the same as playing chess with no rooks agains Ai who has extra. AI immidiatly pops 3 cities (from extra initial settlers I assume) and it downhill from then. You cannot possible try to compete against AI in wonder building or technology or anything else for that matter. AI get massive bonus. Possible way to get ahead I suppose is to steal closest Ai workers right away (since he will going to declare war on you anyways very soon). Then probably you need to hold off waarrior/archer bonzai flood. Which will happen from mutiple players most likely. When I go hardcore, I can often take ou tmy closest guy after a long war. I even managed to take out Babyloanians with their walls and archers. But after that, I find myself freshed out. My war economy becomes obsolete even with newly aquired cites. Other tribes get a runaway score and leave me way behind. Anyone find a way to get ahead in this situation?

 

[Gort]

My problem with playing deity is that you pretty much have to exploit the flaws of the AI in order to win - selling them stupid stuff like open borders when they don't need them, using things like the sell-a-luxury-then-pillage-it-so-you-can-sell-it-again bug, and generally squeezing every advantage you can get out of the game.

I prefer the lower levels because I can relax more and play the way I want to play

 

[Ermak-]

My problem with playing deity is that you pretty much have to exploit the flaws of the AI in order to win - selling them stupid stuff like open borders when they don't need them, using things like the sell-a-luxury-then-pillage-it-so-you-can-sell-it-again bug, and generally squeezing every advantage you can get out of the game.

I prefer the lower levels because I can relax more and play the way I want to play

I don't do exploits. Eccept for the one's i cant change like AI attackign citie swith loads of archers and 0 melee units. Playing anythign below diety insults my intellect.

 

[CTH]

It is tricky in diety, but you can build wonders and you can wage war and win fairly quickly. I would say that it is almost a must to have an early war and win it. You have to be a bit lucky (at least I have to be that) and get a pretty good start and then not getting all AI to attack you at once...

 

[danieladler]

I have found that even though deity is not at all impossible, there are so many bonuses for the AI that it feels more like the AI cheats, rather than AI being more smart and challenging. And ofc cheating is what its all about when you raise the difficulty level in any game. The negative comes when you actually get it written on your nose. I wouldnt say what seems to be obvious to say, that Civ4 was better, because it wasnt in this department. It had quite the same issues with the game being too easy or to corrupt. I am more comfortable with emperor. Beyond emperor, its often just ridiculous.

 

[qalsip1977]

Deity is definitely different, altogether, than playing any other difficulty setting. You basically have a totally different set of strategies to employ in Deity than you do on even Immortal difficulty. Because of the AI's massive advantages, you have to be pretty focused from turn 1, and stay a certain course throughout. There's no such thing as a peaceful Deity game. You WILL be in at least 1 war...if not many. Domination or Science is probably the two best victory conditions to persue. Culture is difficult because, in order to focus on culture, your military generally suffers and...having little to no military just isn't an option. RNG plays a pretty big role in things.

Deity is no joke...but it's definitely winable. I've done it 3 times now (domination victory, OCC cultural victory, and a space race victory), and only 3 times, in the 3 months or so I've been playing Deity only. It's brutal, it is frustrating, but when you win...you feel like an absolute rockstar because of how insanely difficult it is.

Good luck!

 

[Ermak-]

I am trying now all out rush tactic with initial capital as Aztecs. Hopefully i can take over someone quick and get a boost from free cities. It still hard- coz on diety they get walls in every town by turn 20 or so. It takes hell of jaguars to take walled city when they shoot at you and all. My strategy was to take over closest neighbor and then hopefully upgrade jags to swords and move to another onether guy. In the last game I took out Americans but then no iron anywhere. Plus the neighbor already had like 20-sized castled cities- so no way to push foward. I probably will also need to go straight to piety happy bonus, since no way to support many conqured cites with hapiness otherwise.

 

[MadDjinn]

youtube is your friend.

 

[qemist]

I wish playing CV was diety, but I think I'm gaining weight.

 

[basta]

Playing anythign below diety insults my intellect.

Well I have to admit that for me the opposite is true; deity is so insanely stacked that it insults my intellect.

I much prefer immortal, where there is still a semblance of "normality" to the game, and where you don't have to develop and precision-execute borderline exploitative strategies to eek out a win. I'm not knocking the Deity pros here -- respect -- but for me on deity the fun is gone, and the game is about fun in the end (let's try and remember that, peeps!)

Also, I enjoy early to mid-game the most and find that on Deity it's simply ridiculous, there's no enjoyment left. It's there, ok, but if it isn't fun for you and seems totally insane, why play it?

 

[qalsip1977]

I agree with the notion that deity is too rediculous. I also enjoy immortal better. But...the competitive side of me longs for the satisfaction of beating the insane. Thusly, I play Deity.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Deity is definitely different, altogether, than playing any other difficulty setting.

Once you realize this and start to optimize around the unusual conditions Deity brings to the table, it really isn't that bad. The main problem is that the AI is a significant enough constraint to force you down the same limited lines of play over and over.

Unfortunately, that's a problem with strategy gaming against an AI in general. No AI is capable of reading situations and reacting the way a human would; it executes the same canned, predictable strategies that it's been hard coded with. Increased sophistication only reduces the frequency with which the AI executes a given canned strategy.

The result is that a strategy AI that is "hard" but "beatable" is only going to sustain a few, limited winning strategies, and will beat anything else.

 

[baldfalk]

Diety
cook sets

Sorry, I giggled

Okay, back to the thread. Unfortunately some cooking is almost required.

 

[snarzberry]

Non-isolated start you want to immediately prepare to go on the offensive. If you're isolated, like between a wall of city-states on the edge of the map then peaceful wins, science is easiest, are possible and sometimes optimal.

A couple of weapons to incorporate are the rush to chivalry or quick rifling. The former works best with knight UU civs, obv, and the latter works best with Babylon and Korea. Other civs with early UU's can all be used to good effect to take out a neighbour as your first goal, such as the Iroquois, Rome or Egypt.

Liberty is the strongest opening tree.

If you don't already know it get familiar with the hard build HS-rush PT-rush NT - open Astronomy - Open Rationalism chain as this is the fastest way to get through the tech tree. If you're going for a science victory, peaceful or not, on deity then this is all but essential.

Probably if you're coming from exclusively multi-player it's going to take a little while to really be able to manipulate the diplomacy system. Reading the threads about leader traits will be useful as that information is vital to shape the diplomacy space in your favour.

You're probably already skilled at war tactics so you'll probably get further by going full out warmonger to begin with. Mongolia is the strongest civ for this on deity but you could also try Songhai, Babylon or France.

 

[headcase]

I have found that even though deity is not at all impossible, there are so many bonuses for the AI that it feels more like the AI cheats, rather than AI being more smart and challenging.

In point of fact, I'm not aware of anything in the AI that changes its skill from level to level, besides their overall attitude towards humans (2 on Settler, 1 on Cheiftain, 0 on Warlord, and -1 on everything else), and overall they less propensity for war on easier difficulties as well. The bonuses\penalties the player gets are probably the major difference.

 

[Talim [own]]

Am I the only one finding diety too easy...?

I mean I just never lose on large map with about any leader. On small map... I just roll over them with ridiculous ease. I wish there was 1 level over diety

 

[qalsip1977]

Am I the only one finding diety too easy...?

I mean I just never lose on large map with about any leader. On small map... I just roll over them with ridiculous ease. I wish there was 1 level over diety

Can you post a save? I'm interested in seeing your technique.

 

[sleepysteve]

Can you post a save? I'm interested in seeing your technique.

This! quite frankly I have a hard time believing it!

 

[Tabarnak]

If you don't already know it get familiar with the hard build HS-rush PT-rush NT - open Astronomy - Open Rationalism chain

Probably if you're coming from exclusively multi-player it's going to take a little while to really be able to manipulate the diplomacy system.

You're probably already skilled at war tactics so you'll probably get further by going full out warmonger to begin with.

What is NT? National Treasury?

I agree.

Killing AI units and human units is different. You don't want to lose units against the cheaters(AI) on high levels. You don't need to clickfest.

 

[lietkynes]

How to win at Deity:
Build the first 4 cities, build 5-6 warriors and 2-3 archers, don't bother with walls or buildings at this point, don't use any money, you will need it later, direct your research straight to iron working. As soon as you have iron upgrade those 6 warriors, put your economy to war mode (maximize production, only build military units) and declare war on a neighbour. You should easily take the first city, don't stop after that, keep pushing. Try to get money in all possible ways (don't trade your excess luxuries, sell them for money), use money to rush courthouses to keep your invasion going. After you conquered your neighbour you will have like a dozen of cities and you will be on top of everyone else. Take some time to consolidate, maybe 30-40 turns, get useful buildings (market, walls, granary, library), always try to maximize money and do research agreements. Get all policies that give you happiness bonus. When you are ready start a new war. After you conquered your second neighbour you have like won the game, by the middle ages you should have about 20-25 cities and no one can really compete with you.

Of course this needs modifications depending on terrain, neighbours, ecc. For example if you don't have iron disband all warriors and build a spearman/archer army as soon as possible and immediately attack a city that has iron.

It's very easy and it doesn't require much skill, just some practice. It doesn't matter how large bonus the AI gets, you will always win because the combat AI can't compete with humans. If you are at war you are doing the right thing because that is the only ground where you have the bonus over the AI. In fact it's impossible to lose a war to the AI, unless he has more than 10 times the size of your army or if he's more than 1 era ahead of you in technology.