[Guide] Mauling Deity

[Maxym]

No problem. Now you get to enjoy the pains of extreme micromanagement .

It's not that painful once per new citizen, and I never thought about diminishing returns in my games, I picked up that on marathon it might not be as helpful, but the same thing applies just as a percentage of production not of time.

Thank you for clearing that up guys, I should have been more explicit.

 

[Sadato]

He is playing Marathon, a completely different game (and a lot easier) and in addition raging barbs (being marathon that will slow down and mess AIs for sure). None of his advice is useful for standard deity except for some useful tips for new players (who shoudn't play deity btw).

That said I believe there are better ways of playing also on marathon:

- Scouts are useful (ruins for you before the AI, faster CS meeting gold, meet all AIs sooner to get more buyers of your lux/resources/embassy, tech discount for AIs met with that tech). Also sooner CS quests (and then sooner benefits) and natural wonders for extra free happiness.
- Fast map exploration is key and you seem to miss it. In domination games you need to know your neighbour locations (helpful wonders location), terrain and army composition to choose your targets.
- There is no need to delay your expansion after NC. If played correctly you can get 4 libraries in a reasonable time. If you stop your expansion and policy adquisition to insert GL in your build order you are losing more than if you skip it.
- You should build a monument in your capitol ASAP, normal build should be scout-monument, faster border growth, policy adquisition and a free amphitheatre later. If you wait till legalism to get your monument you are doing it wrong.
- CS bonuses are great and much better than some workers. Happiness from merchantile helps you expand and keep growing, cultural speed up your policies, military free units, also faith and food from the others. If you keep stealing workers and make all CS forever angry you skip all those advantages in exchange of almost nothing (workers are cheap to buy and produce and you can steal them from the AI).
- You should never automate workers. You know if you need a farm or a mine or to chop a forest at the present time, your automated worker knows nothing about your priorities.
- To go offensive you need to hit "timings" to catch the AI with his pants down and that means temporary tech advantadge "on site". You don't mention those timings. Build many archers upgrade ASAP to composite and hit 1-2 neighbours fast. Upgrade to xbows and hit another one. Reach artillery with oxford or scientist bulbs and hit again. Reach bombers and hit. Same for navigation and frigates in water maps. That is the correct way to play domination games. To hit those techs Research Agreements help a ton and with all that CS warmongering I highly doubt you can sign many RAs.
- You must fill all your scientist slots ASAP to get your tech pace in a proper shape.
- Rationalism (and btw Patronage-Aesthetics for those CS bonuses that you miss) are much better policies than honor for Domination Victory. Tech advantadge is everything.
- Porcelain Tower is a key wonder, even when warmongering you will have some friends and RAs up and a free GS is great.

But hey lots of effort on writing your guide and everybody plays the way he wants and if you manage to win doing that kudos to you but it is not the optimal way to play.

 

[Falconiano]

If you read the initial post it clearly says.

In other words, you can play that one as domination if you so choose. This is one of the few GotM games that lets you choose which VC you want to go for.

I'll need more information about that VC setting.
I never played non-domination games as I dislike any form of peaceful victory.
So when there is no designated VC what happens? AI can win by any criteria without wiping me out?
This domination-only turtle strategy works as long as the requirement for you to lose is that you are conquered - since the whole point of this strat is making it impossible to be conquered.
If they can win peacefully it doesn't work obviously.

Otherwise if it's about warmongering, I'm all down for it.

I think it would be taken more seriously if not for those automatic workers and letting governors run cities.

Yeah I quickly realized I touched some sensible subjects there, seeing as some are biased to think you are *required* to not automate anything to win the game.
Of course that is simply not true; as long as you manually do the important stuff, the remainers like roads and farm can be auto'd.
Manual governor isn't going to give any noticiable advantage either.

Sure, it's undeniable that extreme micro vs half-assed micro saves you a few turns worth of advantage in the long run.
From there to being a strict requirement there are many ocean tiles though.

 

[Maxym]

Could you post the opening save please?

It seems you are playing this game now so you should have it. All this has sparked my interest in trying marathon deity. For that matter you could make it the next DC. Sure many people might not want to try marathon but on the other hand some change of pace might be welcome

And then we could see how different approaches might work.

@ Sadato, how likely and useful is the GL on marathon? If it really is easy to snag it might be a good idea. From this fairly isolated start it won't be easy to take over a neighbor or maybe it still will be considering it's marathon.

@OP I know you are not required, but it is just assumed at that level. If you are doing it without it, power to you. I wish I could let AI manage anything. As you say the returns past the crucial stages might be minimal, but I just can't make myself do it even if my games take much longer. I did it throughout the series and in any other strategy game I played but it might be just me.

 

[Sidor1982]

I was going through this post and thought whether to respond to this obviously useless guide or not (however I will give the credit of spending a lot of time for the OP to create it).

However I'm gonna give a couple of remarks, that have not been mentioned yet - although some might be mentioned in some way.

1. These games and descriptions look like the game was a couple of patches old - in which case I'm certain, that such a strategy would work under the precise described conditions (especially the marathon speed, which makes the game so much easier). Marathon speed also makes going for GL possible, but definitely not a 70% chance (with newest patch) and definitely not with automated workers (they need to chop down forests asap). The slower the game pace, the less the AI prioritizes GL and other wonders as well.

2. Automated workers is something a deity player would NEVER recommend. For one thing they don't build pastures on cows and sheep (priority no 1 upgrades), camps on deer and prioritize useless stuff.

3. The Persian colour of your Roman empire would suggest that at least one mod is used, which effectively disables the guide as a strategy guide.

4. A strategy based on rerolling every single important game aspect is not a strategy. It reminds me of civ 4 games, where you had 0,1% chance of conquering a city and rerolled x times untill it happened.

Don't take my post personally, it wasn't meant that way. However if you post a "Deity Guide" which is so detached from reality it has no place here.

 

[Falconiano]

He is playing Marathon, a completely different game (and a lot easier) . None of his advice is useful for standard deity.
That said I also believe there are better ways of playing also on marathon:
- Scouts are useful (ruins for you before the AI, faster CS meeting gold, meet all AIs sooner to get more buyers of your lux/resources/embassy, tech discount for AIs met with that tech).
- There is no need to delay your expansion after NC. If played correctly you can get 4 libraries in a reasonable time.
- You should build a monument in your capitol ASAP, normal build should be scout-monument,, faster border growth, policy adquisition and a free amphitheatre later. If you wait till legalism to get your monument you are doing it wrong.
- CS bonuses are great and much better than some workers. Happiness from merchantile helps you expand and keep growing, cultural speed up your policies, military free units, also faith and food from the others. If you keep stealing workers and make all CS forever angry you skip all those advantages in exchange of almost nothing (workers are cheap to buy and produce and you can steal them from the AI).
- You should never automate workers. You know if you need a farm or a mine or to chop a forest at the present time, your automated worker knows nothing about your priorities.
- To go offensive you need to hit "timings" to catch the AI with his pants down and that means temporary tech advantadge "on site". Build many archers upgrade ASAP to composite and hit 1-2 neighbours fast. Upgrade to xbows and hit another one. Reach artillery with oxford or scientist bulbs and hit again. Reach bombers and hit. Same for navigation and frigates in water maps. That is the correct way to play domination games. To hit those techs Research Agreements help a ton and with all that CS warmongering I highly doubt you can sign many RAs.

But hey lots of effort on writing your guide and everybody plays the way he wants and if you manage to win doing that kudos to you but it is not the optimal way to play.

What you describe isn't the "optimal" nor "correct" way to play.
It's your take on how to play the game, simple as that. There are many other ways posted around here, and this one I do is another one again.

You get some advantages I don't get, but miss on some advantages I get.
You expand soon and face very early threats, I don't and boom more.
You don't get freebies.
You waste turns on scouting that my strat doesn't need at all.
You need to rely on temporary tech advantages for conquest, I don't need them at all as I maul a whole army, get levels and then I out-level the enemy.
I could never bear the flaws your "optimal" strategy would leave me with.

As for the game speed, I actually developed it on Standard and then adapted it to Marathon.
The effectiveness is pretty much the same, focus on defense, deplete armies, boom, win.

 

[wigwam]

So when there is no designated VC what happens? AI can win by any criteria without wiping me out?
This domination-only turtle strategy works as long as the requirement for you to lose is that you are conquered - since the whole point of this strat is making it impossible to be conquered.
If they can win peacefully it doesn't work obviously.

So let's get this straight.

1) You're playing on Marathon speed.
2) You only play on Europe or Pangaea maps.
3) You're using mods.
4) Domination is the only possible victory condition.
5) You reroll any start that doesn't put your capital on a hill next to a mountain and river.
6) You abuse exploits to get gold.

How can you expect this guide to be useful to anybody? You're not playing Civ 5 at all; you're playing an extremely limited fraction of the game carefully manipulated to allow you to win as easily as possible. The craziest thing is that I still think you're withholding some important information, because even with all these absurd advantages, your play is so suboptimal that you shouldn't be able to succeed. You're not managing your citizens well, you're not managing your specialists well, you're not generating enough science—how are you building so many wonders? And if you don't build units in your capital, and you don't build a second city until after NC, and you don't explore, where are you getting the military units you need to defend yourself? Without meeting city-states or popping ruins or anything, how do you get the gold to buy an army? Just by exploiting lump sum trades with the AI? That wouldn't be adequate on Standard speed; is there really that much more gold floating around on Marathon?

What mods do you have enabled?

 

[Monthar]

What other advanced settings are you using besides raging barbarians? Legendary Start? Strategic Balance? High sea level?

What map size are you using with those 12-20 civs? Default for huge maps is 12, so if you have up to 20 civs you're clearly adding more AI's than the maps are designed for.

How many city states do you have? Standard number for the map size or are you adding more?

If you're playing on a standard sized map with up to 20 AI and adding more CS's, you're severely hampering the AI by limiting how much they can expand. This also makes the game a lot easier. The AI's end up with fewer cities, thus lower BPT. They end up warring with each other a lot more due to limited space to expand. The combo of fewer cities and constants wars means they have fewer units to throw at you.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I assume you're talking about Moai spamming combined with the effect of Piety completion?

Close.

If there is something I learned from Polynesia and Piety history is that as strong as the temptation might be to 'analyze' this 'guide' line by line, for the sake of less experienced players who genuinely want to learn and improve, some threads should not be bumped.

 

[Sidor1982]

So, Falconiano, how do you feel about Polynesia and Piety?

Yeah, this post looks similarly to the one from that Polynesia troll-fanatic.

 

[Falconiano]

So let's get this straight.

1) You're playing on Marathon speed.

2) You only play on Europe or Pangaea maps.

3) You're using mods.

4) Domination is the only possible victory condition.

5) You reroll any start that doesn't put your capital on a hill next to a mountain and river.

6) You abuse exploits to get gold.

How can you expect this guide to be useful to anybody? You're not playing Civ 5 at all; you're playing an extremely limited fraction of the game carefully manipulated to allow you to win as easily as possible. The craziest thing is that I still think you're withholding some important information, because even with all these absurd advantages, your play is so suboptimal that you shouldn't be able to succeed. You're not managing your citizens well, you're not managing your specialists well, you're not generating enough science—how are you building so many wonders? And if you don't build units in your capital, and you don't build a second city until after NC, and you don't explore, where are you getting the military units you need to defend yourself? Without meeting city-states or popping ruins or anything, how do you get the gold to buy an army? Just by exploiting lump sum trades with the AI? That wouldn't be adequate on Standard speed; is there really that much more gold floating around on Marathon?

What mods do you have enabled?

As I said I have played with any settings, Civ V has been around for years and I got it at release.
I don't reseed maps, I just suggest novices to do so because when you first step into deity you need to learn gradually.
My "mods" are visual stuff.
How does player color and the RED mod (which only modifies the unit graphics) favor me in any way?

^ I will not repeat the aforementioned anymore, nor anything already explained.
From now on if you don't read the OP and make wrong assumptions you don't deserve a reply.

As for settling this dispute.
Once I get home I'll play the game from the challenge save posted by the other guy earlier, since it seems this fits the standards of this forum, and will post results and saves.
Then if you have complaints about this, you can go in the GotM forum and tell them their maps are obviously biased toward me because for some reasons I still win with my "suboptimal" strategy.
And it can't possibly be that one wins without using the "undisputable conventional gimmick made up in some forums that is obviously the only way to beat the game".
I can't believe you actually believe in that, but whatever.

Hopefully after I get this done you guys pull the head out of the sand and start realizing your way isn't the only effective one.

 

[tommynt]

I truly dont see what these 4 pages of posts are about - the te is winning with his guide - at least he says so. Good for him and others playing same settings and same stratgies.

You really all act like this was 1. guide or post in this forum being bad in wrong, 99% os posts in this forum are bad and wrong and suddenly this 1 bad thread gets attention?

Maybe its even good to be there as its in fact saying - u can play horrible and still win deity if you just make settings your way. So maybe more horrible players can start playing deity following this guide.

 

[Falconiano]

Close.

If there is something I learned from Polynesia and Piety history is that as strong as the temptation might be to 'analyze' this 'guide' line by line, for the sake of less experienced players who genuinely want to learn and improve, some threads should not be bumped.

You might want to consider that some less experienced players might want to learn and improve in some other way than what you decided for them.
This whole "you play our way or we flame you" bandwagon is pretty ridiculous, trying to lock any different opinion out and praising own's opinions as the best. Soviet Russia style eh.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Yeah, this post looks similarly to the one from that Polynesia troll-fanatic.

The attitude too.

You might want to consider that some less experienced players might want to learn and improve in some other way than what you decided for them.
This whole "you play our way or we flame you" bandwagon is pretty ridiculous, trying to lock any different opinion out and praising own's opinions as the best. Soviet Russia style eh.

Do you really believe anyone here cares about the way you play? Trust me, nobody does.
But if you post in Strategy section and try to educate others, you lay yourself open to criticism. Which depending on content of your posts may be constructive, not so constructive or even absent. When you call cooked settings and infinite rerolling 'creativity' and strategy robustness and reliability 'Soviet Russia' be sure you'll get flamed. That's just how things work. Life sucks.

 

[Sadato]

If you disable Science and Diplo Victory you have all the time in the world to research the whole tech tree 10 times while beating the AIs so there is no need for optimal strategies or good gameplan at all.
In normal games you are in a hurry to conquer all the AIs before they launch the spaceship.

I tried Deity Marathon for like 20 minutes with Egypt and got scout, monument, shrine, GL, granary, NC and HG T164 (ToA passed away T66) so yes, it is another game.
20 turns to build farm, 11 turns to chop a forest wow, my hand hurts of clicking end turn, marathon players are my new heroes xD

One thing I noticed is that things take soooo long to get that pop and tech ruins are in fact OP and that there were a lot more avaible ruins than in standard speed, it seemed like the AIs were less active on the map, lots of available barb camps aswell.
I would open with triple scout/warrior definitely to get all ruins and camps I could get.

Some weird things about marathon: camps give 75 gold instead of 25, but a worker costs 700 instead of 310, given the fact that I spotted lots of barb camps with only 1 scout and 1 warrior songhai could be a good civ to play here.
CS meetings give 30 and 15 and embassies sell for 25 like in normal gameplay which is quite nonsense.

CS relations drop 0.67 per turn while gifts cost the same and give the same relation improvements than in standard so it is easier to keep CS allied (so more important to complete do CS quests as they give longer benefit) and a cheaper way to get bonuses than using the money to buy units/buildings.

 

[Vohbo]

I do not agree at all with two things:
1) Reroll until you have a good starts. This teaches you nothing.
2) Don't reload saved games.

The two points contradict eachother. You learn the most when you reload saved games because it can show you more about what you are doing wrong. This is a much faster way to learn than just playing more. For example: one time I was allied with the Ottomans who were very expansive. We fought together against Theodora, he conquered most of her cities but I took her capital. Immediately after, he dow'ed me and I lost because my units were completely out of position. If you look at this in a vacuum, you learn only that sometimes AI's betray you. If you go back to a prior save and change the progress of the collective war (I took a city adjacent to her capital, so Suleiman couldn't reach the capital, then maintained war with without taking the capital), and noticed that our friendship was maintained (max gold per luxury etc).
That seems a lot more valuable knowledge than what you can get from playing an extra game.

 

[Falconiano]

The attitude too.


Do you really believe anyone here cares about the way you play? Trust me, nobody does.
But if you post in Strategy section and try to educate others, you lay yourself open to criticism. Which depending on content of your posts may be constructive, not so constructive or even absent. When you call cooked settings and infinite rerolling 'creativity' and strategy robustness and reliability 'Soviet Russia' be sure you'll get flamed. That's just how things work. Life sucks.

I've actually been pretty educate in the way I exposed my strat and nothing in my behavior warranted all the condescending troll baits that followed up.
I believe resisting 3 pages of flames is a good level of patience.
I posted the same exact guide on the Italian forum and I've yet to see anything remotely uneducated, so the problem isn't definitely within the guide nor me.

What I see is a little group segregated into one single strategy with very specific settings (ironic, considering I've been accused of using specific setting too) who's denigrating anyone playing differently.
That's pretty sad considering we're just talking about a game.
If that's the standard of this section I see little future for anyone not wanting to be the umpteenth clone.

As for your veiled accuse of me being a fake account I can PM you my facebook details and we could catch up on cam as well.
At this point, I've been not only doubted of anything game-related but also my identity
It's getting more ridiculous every page to see the extent to which you try to discredit the source of a point you have no evidence against, ad hominem fallacia, just to blindly defend your way to play a game.

 

[Maxym]

This is a very educational reload, and you already had an insight into game mechanics and were testing it. What is not so helpful is reloading until you get wonders you want to ruin reward etc.

What is really bugging me about this guide and it has been pointed out that it is almost impossible to lose based on the settings, especially domination being the only option. I think this is what leads to the rest of nonsense, if you cannot lose and if you stay alive till modern era, you can exploit AI inability to use air force until you win, on turn ....1000 ? 1200?
Having 20 AIs really gimps them too as no one can get to be really huge unless very successful at gobbling up others.

 

[Syailendra]

As I said I have played with any settings, Civ V has been around for years and I got it at release.
I don't reseed maps, I just suggest novices to do so because when you first step into deity you need to learn gradually.
My "mods" are visual stuff.
How does player color and the RED mod (which only modifies the unit graphics) favor me in any way?

^ I will not repeat the aforementioned anymore, nor anything already explained.
From now on if you don't read the OP and make wrong assumptions you don't deserve a reply.

As for settling this dispute.
Once I get home I'll play the game from the challenge save posted by the other guy earlier, since it seems this fits the standards of this forum, and will post results and saves.
Then if you have complaints about this, you can go in the GotM forum and tell them their maps are obviously biased toward me because for some reasons I still win with my "suboptimal" strategy.
And it can't possibly be that one wins without using the "undisputable conventional gimmick made up in some forums that is obviously the only way to beat the game".
I can't believe you actually believe in that, but whatever.

Hopefully after I get this done you guys pull the head out of the sand and start realizing your way isn't the only effective one.

wow thats bold! I'm waiting to see you post winning saves, just don't forget the deadline is 1st of july.
Hope you don't get frustated before time.
(while you most probably will)

 

[wigwam]

Once I get home I'll play the game from the challenge save posted by the other guy earlier, since it seems this fits the standards of this forum, and will post results and saves.

I'm looking forward to it. If you're really only playing with cosmetic mods, you must be doing something right, because beating 12+ AIs to all those Wonders is no mean feat, even at Marathon speed. I'll be very surprised if you can wrap up a Domination win at Standard speed before somebody else scores a Science win, however.

Do you understand why people think it's misleading to offer a Deity guide without admitting that you've disabled all but one of the VCs?