Going Wide on Deity: A Discussion

[Light Cleric]

So I've had a nice chunk of free time the past week(I work in IT at a university and the students are gone for summer, woo ) and have been able to play quite a number of Deity games with several civs, and set aside certain starts instead of playing them in case they look LP worthy. In the ones I did play, though, I found an overwhelming theme, and that's going wide was a horrible idea on the overwhelming majority of Deity maps.

The reason I discuss Deity specifically is because of one very important factor that the other difficulty levels don't have. On Deity, the AI starts with 2 Settlers instead of one. This immediately cuts the amount of available land down by a huuuuuuuge amount.

These are the civs I've found some benefit to going wide with.
-Maya/Ethiopia/The Celts, the "religious" civs.
-Rome
-France
-Byzantium - more Shrines for religion. Technically, this could apply to any civ, but Byzantium's UA makes it much more worthwhile to "chase" the 4th/5th religion which can still be amazing for them with 2 enhancers but could really suck for another civ.
-The Netherlands(they can get out quick and preserve happiness; 2-3 pop satellite cities are waaaay better than 1 pop ones)
-Carthage(on water maps, free Harbor = free Trade route and easy triggering of Meritocracy)
-Arabia(situational. I don't need 18 Copper thank you)

Note that wide = Liberty but Liberty does not always equal wide. For example Monty can murder barbs to shave several turns off of Collective Rule, but going wide is not always a great idea compared to abusing Floating Gardens in a tall game. Darius renames Representation to Immortal Steamroller, which can make Liberty worth taking even if you stay smallish.

I have been a defender of Liberty for a while and I still think it's a strong option those civilizations, but I have found it very, very difficult to justify going wide otherwise and sometimes go tall even with those civs. One argument that is often used is the ability to claim lots of land and therefore Luxury/Strategic Resources, but even founding just 4 cities lets you claim 144 workable/purchasable tiles, and Tradition's faster borders(reduces culture costs 75% IIRC) makes it easier to get those important tiles as well as the ones in the 4th/5th ring in a reasonable time.

So the question is: have you gotten wide to "work" on Deity outside of those civs and how can you justify it over Tradition tall? For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to define wide as 7 or more settled cities.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Iroquois and Russia.
How did justify it? I don't think I did. I had uncontested space, so I REX'ed. That (and luxes, of course) is essentially what determines whether I go wide or tall. Civ choice is secondary, IMO. Many civs can work out if you have enough space and no bloodthirsty neighbors just waiting for an opportunity to snipe your recently founded soft cities. Defending is much harder in this scenario. But most of the time there is no real dilemma since meeting both conditions on deity is much harder than defending.

As you know, I like Liberty for domination games. Love Meritocracy and love Representation which allows annexing cities that need to be annexed without worrying about SP costs. But that definitely doesn't mean settling more than 7 native cities. It's still 2-4 native and a healthy bunch of annexed.

 

[ds61514]

I think going going wide is only worth if you expect a fully peaceful game or are on Archipelago maps.

Each new city incurs:

- 3 excess points of unhappiness.

- Increased policy costs

- Increased National Wonder requirements (this is a biggie).

- Less hammers devoted to infrastructure. It really struck me how in Civ 5, multipliers are everything. My motto is: "Land isn't power, Library + NC + Observatory + Public School + Research Lab is power!"

- How tech > all. About 80% of my wars are won via tech beeline to a military tech (Construction, Machinery, Artillery, Flight). The payback in tech from a new city usually doesn't come until Artillery/Flight. In contrast, the payback in tech from building a University is a lot faster.

Also, post-patch, I'm not even sure if "Liberty = Wide, Tradition = Tall" applies anymore. People have done Liberty --> Composite Bow rushes. They may be even better than Tradition rushes because Liberty gives you 800g of assets (worker + settler) that translate into military.

 

[Moriarte]

I always felt that going wide from get go is sub optimal. So i pick tradition in 90% of my games. I mean, it can work, just give me few mercantile CS with barb camps attached and voila - no happiness problems and liberty start becomes as strong as tradition start. The biggest problem for me is Meritocracy. +1 happy from trade route is weak compensation for the amount of unhappiness you get from every new settlement. I want happiness NOW, and that's why tradition always shines for me. Besides, on Deity i usually can't afford to slowly grow my 7 city empire, it usually is: settle 3 cities quickly, build 7 CBs and get some puppets asap, while hammering NC.

I think in a hypothetical situation where i have vast lands to settle and few distant neighbours, i'd still limit myself to 4 - 5 cities max and invest the rest in the army. Not much time will pass before these lands get settled and i can start training my troops.

So yes, very hard to justify wide here.

The only case, where i wouldn't hesitate going wide is starting as Spain in the desert near Uluru/Kailash/Sinai. Pick mosques + pagodas and go as wide as you like..

 

[Kazdum]

I had a game with Egypt in continents in deity difficulty.

Honestly I love liberty, I think playing the game with 2-4 cities kills its purpose, so I often try to go wide. I had so much trouble to win my first deity I was frustrated then I set up a new game and I was decided to try something new.

I picked Egypt (mostly because of the Burial Tomb), and I would try to give ICS a to see how far I would go before my empire collapses to raging hordes of mongols.

I fast expanded extremely quickly to 8 cities, like before turn 100, I had 6 CBs, 4 archers and 3 warriors as my army I managed to conquer England, I puppeted her capitol and razed her other 3 cities then I was in a crossroads. Maybe I shouldn't ICS, maybe I can benefit from 8 cities, I am in a good spot, I was somehow in 3rd place in the world-wide score so I decided to stay put and grow my cities and grab every happiness I could get, Religion and Burial Tombs helped me a lot, it was my first win at deity.

Eventually with bombers and rocket artillery I managed to puppet Gandhi, he had some serious tall cities, then my science went sky-high. My goal was to achieve a Domination victory, I tried to invade the other continent but it did not really worked out, so I just sat back and wait for the Science victory.

It was a hell of a fun game, expanding your empire to the point of -9 happiness and bankruptcy is really challenging and gives the ancient/classical era a new perspective. Since then I am fan with Wide empires, I have reach the point where I don't care which civ I play with, I just like to take liberty and feel comfortable with it.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

I haven't played a lot of diety games but I general prefer 4-5 cities and going tall, unless situations dictate otherwise: a) decent amount of land and resources that should be open; b) other civs I know of (close ones) have started wars with one another;

I find wide can = war before I want one far too often and if you can't manage the unhappiness you just get stifled. I will say that I have never tested lots of religion with many cities on diety. That could possible work.

I find that if I want to try to avoid early wars that going with Ghandi can lead to crushing wins. 4-6 cities can all get very tall and by mid game you are pumping out gold, science and CS ownership. I find with fewer cities you tend to stay out of wars for almost as long as you want, which means you can pick a nice point to build up and crush someone. Like some neighbor who has been at war with your 'friend' or 40+ turns, usually easy pickings and it just steamrolls from there.

Anyways, I have always been crushed on Diety when I went wide but maybe I just have a 'tall minded' approach to civ5

 

[OwlRaider]

I find that going wide is only feasible on large and huge maps, regardless of number of civilizations in game. Standard maps are simply too small for large empires. In large/huge maps you will have the space, even if it means razing some of your neighbor's cities and build your own in better tiles, or annex a few if they're in good locations(unlikely considering it's the AI). In larger maps, when you you manage to get your wide empire going, I find that it makes the game that much easier, as I find the AI to be much less aggressive against wide empires as it considers them as much more threatening than tall ones. Also, being a wide empire, you need more defensive troops naturally, just to defend your borders, which helps the AI's perception towards you.

 

[Deau]

I tend to find the happiness/growth halt to be too hard to recover from. In the extremely rare cases that I went for it, I just had massive room to expand and either lucked out on El dorado to push the second city out early and spam settlers hard built there from pop 3 and on.

I generally refrain from settling past turn 100 with a high preference to sub 80 settling. I'd rather let an AI take the spot and attack them later because there is no way a human player can get as good growth as AI can.

Ultimately, going wide when not isolated with lots of room to expand is more detrimental to diplomacy than stealing cities from a single AI. So unless I plan to warmonger so much, prior to education that I am doomed for RAs, I'd rather refrain from REXing.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

I tend to find the happiness/growth halt to be too hard to recover from. In the extremely rare cases that I went for it, I just had massive room to expand and either lucked out on El dorado to push the second city out early and spam settlers hard built there from pop 3 and on.

Finding El dorado first/early can change your whole game plan. I really like the natural wonders but 500g for that single natural wonder is unbalanced. But on Diety I'll gladly take it,

 

[Light Cleric]

Thanks for the input guys!

I think several people hit on my two biggest problems, happiness and defense. The Meritocracy happiness is GREAT for later on when you're taking cities but it sucks early on because you're likely to not get it until your last policy + it takes trade routes. Defense is also a pain because you have to defend multiple fronts and it's very difficult to settle a bunch of cities in decent defensible positions.

@Pilgrim - I still don't get the appeal of Russia going wide. Yeah you can grab for land for strategic resources but like I said you can grab like 90% of them with 3-4 cities anyway. Maybe I'm missing something. I agree with the rest, it just seems like Liberty is best when used for something other than it's ostensible purpose.

@OwlRaider - Yeah, the few large maps I played were much better for going wide. I wish Standard was a bit bigger, somewhere between Large and current Standard, or maybe a +Standard (yes I know about Pangaea+ but that's a bit different).

@BrokTheFanatic - Yeah, I tend to have the same "tall" mindset; when I go wide it's a few good core cities and then ones I take from everyone else. I just want to have some variety but the drawbacks seem too steep atm :/

@Deau - Yeah, I have the same feeling you do. I'm not a fan of being in sizable unhappiness and struggling with GPT(pre-markets) when I could be in a much better position with Tradition(with much faster NC because of fewer cities, Aristocracy etc).

 

[Kazdum]

Let me ask you guys I question, have you ever tried to, lets say you have two civs as your neighbors, if you keep expanding and giving them gifts, lets say 1-4 gpt (depending on your starting gold spot) will they attack you anyway? I was able to expand once towards a civ and he just went tall and took my bribes.

Not sure if it was luck or it just can happen.

Edit: Of course, expanding towards Mongolia and bribe him wont do much to change his hatred towards you, but lets say a more "diplomatic" civ.

 

[Vintage Port]

Let me ask you guys I question, have you ever tried to, lets say you have two civs as your neighbors, if you keep expanding and giving them gifts, lets say 1-4 gpt (depending on your starting gold spot) will they attack you anyway? I was able to expand once towards a civ and he just went tall and took my bribes.

Not sure if it was luck or it just can happen.

Edit: Of course, expanding towards Mongolia and bribe him wont do much to change his hatred towards you, but lets say a more "diplomatic" civ.

I've tried something along these lines but no idea if it helps at all or if it is just random when the comp/AI likes you or not.

Generally if a trade is going to expire and I don't want to renew it I will do what you say and toss them a miniscule amount of gold instead, almost as a freebie to help keep relations positive. No idea how well it works but I try. I did this with China in the recent Immortal challenge where I would toss a few gold (5g) to China and they stayed friends all game, even when I settled a city right next to them and stole/bought 2-3 tiles right next to their borders. She never said a peep all game *shrug* that was a first.

My only suggestion for the devs is that when a "friend" comes asking for help (gold) that you could modify the offer. Like if they come asking for 800g - well I'm not giving them 800g - but to keep positive relations I may give them 50g. Yeah it might not be a lot but at least let us change the terms of the offer.

 

[The Pilgrim]

@Pilgrim - I still don't get the appeal of Russia going wide. Yeah you can grab for land for strategic resources but like I said you can grab like 90% of them with 3-4 cities anyway. Maybe I'm missing something. I agree with the rest, it just seems like Liberty is best when used for something other than it's ostensible purpose.

There is no special reason to play wide with either Russia or Iroquois. These are civs that worked for me in the past outside those you listed.

As Russia you can grab more strategics, which translates to more cash and more cities with high production. Working high production tiles means working less food tiles and Tradition bonuses lose a bit of their appeal. Whether it's enough to justify going wide? Isolated from everything else, probably not. Looks like most of us agree it's hard to justify going wide on deity for the reasons mentioned above. In the better case scenario wide and tall will be on par. That being said, on maps where wide can work out, I will go with it just because I refuse to play every game the same way. Too sad that map generator has different plans for me.

@Deau - Yeah, I have the same feeling you do. I'm not a fan of being in sizable unhappiness and struggling with GPT(pre-markets) when I could be in a much better position with Tradition(with much faster NC because of fewer cities, Aristocracy etc).

Liberty does not delay NC. I build it with the same 2-4 cities. Aristocracy bonus early is very small (scales with Republic) and if you manage to time Representation with NC, you can build it even faster even though your capital might be a little lower on pop.

 

[guinsoo]

Well, this guy went wide and finished a deity game in turn 183: http://www.dos486.com/civ4/civ5gkscience2/

So I believe it's viable Of note is he has a terrific desert folklore start with lots of luxes, and had El Dorado and got a faith hut pretty early. So, there's that.

I am trying to emulate a similar game. I rolled maps for about an hour before running out of patience - I have a lot less desert, luxes, and no El dorado. We'll see how it goes...

 

[ds61514]

Well, this guy went wide and finished a deity game in turn 183: http://www.dos486.com/civ4/civ5gkscience2/

So I believe it's viable Of note is he has a terrific desert folklore start with lots of luxes, and had El Dorado and got a faith hut pretty early. So, there's that.

I am trying to emulate a similar game. I rolled maps for about an hour before running out of patience - I have a lot less desert, luxes, and no El dorado. We'll see how it goes...

That was Emperor.

 

[Deau]

There is no special reason to play wide with either Russia or Iroquois. These are civs that worked for me in the past outside those you listed.

I tend to find Iroquois' Start bias to be naturally bad for early game growth. Sure you can eventually spam cut river forests into grassland farms but really early, you pretty much rely on a few deers since you can't spare this many worker turns for all the cuts on non-resource tiles. As such, I do see Iroquois as a wide civ. Work only the few top notch food tiles you have and spam lumber mills beyond that. I haven't quite played Iroquois since Vanilla I must admit but doing NC beeline into Longhouse beeline used to be really insane. It also helps retain the most out of his UA by saving even more forests.

Nowadays if I were to shoot for a strat like that again, I'd probably go writing -
mathematics -> Philosophy to try and hit HG in capital. 6 extra 1f3h tiles around turn 75 is like a mini desert-hill-petra wonder spam. It's the only civ I wouldn't reroll the Great Plains map when starting on the east end.

The one thing I like less about Iroquois, again because of start bias and in order to put the UA to use is that you are almost forced to settle riverside for watermill as otherwise you are screwed for growth and extra food available to work longhouse forests and not just for the first city but often for the first 3-4 cities if you are in a very dense forest/grassland area.

---

Liberty does not delay NC. I build it with the same 2-4 cities. Aristocracy bonus early is very small (scales with Republic) and if you manage to time Representation with NC, you can build it even faster even though your capital might be a little lower on pop.

Liberty delays NC for me quite often as whenever I start with mining or calendar luxuries and neighbors "far enough", I tend to beeline NC, rush buy a settler 4-5 turns before it completes and settle the following turn. It turned against me a few times but then I either change strat (rare) or simply roll a new map since it's so early in the game anyway -_-

 

[Deau]

Well, this guy went wide and finished a deity game in turn 183: http://www.dos486.com/civ4/civ5gkscience2/

So I believe it's viable Of note is he has a terrific desert folklore start with lots of luxes, and had El Dorado and got a faith hut pretty early. So, there's that.

I am trying to emulate a similar game. I rolled maps for about an hour before running out of patience - I have a lot less desert, luxes, and no El dorado. We'll see how it goes...

I have a few godly start saves I can share if you want to do testing. Only one with El dorado though...as Pacachuti desert/river/mountain start with some 6f2h terrace farm hills and Mt. Sinai 3 tiles from "optimal" settlement spot. Just contact me in PM on the forums with an e-mail to send you saves if you want. I have great one(s) for Inca/Arabia/Ethiopia/Babylon/Korea/Netherlands that I can think of. Oh and one for Rome but no matter how I replay the start, DF gets picked by an AI sub turn 15 turning it into "just a normal start".


*edit* on the other hand they are all deity Pangaea maps with standard settings and thus medium water level. There isn't nearly as much land available on the map as that shown on T-Hawks inland sea (let alone that inland sea and highlands maps have significantly more tile than the usual "challenging" pangaeas.

 

[Deau]

I've tried something along these lines but no idea if it helps at all or if it is just random when the comp/AI likes you or not.

Generally if a trade is going to expire and I don't want to renew it I will do what you say and toss them a miniscule amount of gold instead, almost as a freebie to help keep relations positive. No idea how well it works but I try. I did this with China in the recent Immortal challenge where I would toss a few gold (5g) to China and they stayed friends all game, even when I settled a city right next to them and stole/bought 2-3 tiles right next to their borders. She never said a peep all game *shrug* that was a first.

My only suggestion for the devs is that when a "friend" comes asking for help (gold) that you could modify the offer. Like if they come asking for 800g - well I'm not giving them 800g - but to keep positive relations I may give them 50g. Yeah it might not be a lot but at least let us change the terms of the offer.

If you already had a DoF in place with her, this is why she didn't budge on the city founding + purchase. Generally, DoFed civs will only threathen/ask to stop right before a backstab denounce. That is, whenever your penalty brings diplomacy score low enough that denounce is an option.

I can't confirm whether those silly gifts help or not however. I would think they don't have any weight for the gift value itself but still provide the minimum bonus of an ongoing trade. This wouldn't be sufficient to retain friendship over aggressive REXing however.

The very hard thing to gauge the diplomacy impact of your actions (like the REX and border purchase example),is that once DoF is out, it lasts longer than the inappropriate actions diplo penalty. Thus, depending on timing, it's possible the penalties for settlement+purchase will wear out before you ask to renew the DoF even though in fact, you might have just been very close from a backstab denounce diplo penalty.

What this means and while it may seem odd, is that if you wish to settle near a close neighbor and expect him to eventually befriend you, waiting to settle immediately after the DoF is up will likely help you retain the DoF when renewal is due whereas if you settle shortly before the end of your DoF, you will likely get a renew refusal and the attitude will shift from friendly to normal or worse shortly after the end of the DoF.

 

[glory7]

If you define going wide as settling 7 or more of your own cities, I am not sure when you can do it at deity unless you are France or play large map.

For immortal or below difficulty pangea maps, without designated VC going tall or wide is not very meaningful, as all you need is CB/Xbows rush and you can get domination vic before t140. There are many examples, including several GotMs.

For islands map, whatever the difficulty is, all you need is frigates (and maybe battleships if things don't go well) so going wide is clearly inferior (check DC6 or 18).

For continents map, now it is not clear. But I guess that not going wide is usually better. For immortal or below, you CB rush your continent and whlie doing that you get astronomy - Xbows will end the game. For deity, I believe that 4 city tradition or 4 city liberty CB rush and teching is better choice.

I tend to use liberty fast 3-4 cities and CB rush at deity pangea games (especially quick speed with pyramid), but sometimes I def with CBs and expand more. I think it was DC17 (Persia one) that I expanded to 7th city before t90.

 

[tommynt]

It totaly depends what u want achieve - if u go for domination win more cities dont hurt - at least not after NC is up.

For science i m pretty sure that more as 4-5 early cities isnt a good idea as there just wont be enough happynes to let them all grow - better stay with 3-4 and anex captured big ones later ..

So goign back to I simply want win the game - let it be domination as its most easy - in fact all you have to do is fill all the empty space between you and your ai targets to have roads for attacking.

But to be true - i dont remeber a single deity game in which i went liberty and killing with cbows - it doesnt feel "right" to me - so maybe I am not best commentator.

But I am best about goign into space or for diplo win fast and as said - there is wide (i.e. more as 6 own cities) no good idea - due to the simple lack of happynes reason