Hating Diety

[Park Hyun]

I'm actually doing all right with Rome right now. It just happened after dozens of T30 blitzkreig games.

 

[lotrmith]

There is a dedicated forum for Deity benchmarks chalk full of strategy and tips, as well as the Game of the Months which are frequently Deity and, again, are chalk full of benchmarks and tips.

 

[Stilgar08]

Just tried it with Biz - they're OP, right? Met Netherlads, they immediately declared war, I survived. Turn 60, all Great Prophets were gone. Netherlands snuck a missionary in and converted my capital right after we peace, so I couldn't burn that heretic son of a...
NOOOOPE. Just no. Someone can develop an actually good AI rather than make the game impossible.

Religion is very hard to get on deity. That's nothing new.

....
I'm bored with Immortal and yet find diety to be ridiculous, and the advice I see to players doesn't really help - I'm doing that, man! So my frustration with the game gets compounded with my frustration at getting advice that makes it sound like WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM JUST DO THIS STUFF.

Gah! Just let me scream into the void a little!

Well. Referring to you thread title I'd say "then don't play it". I don't wanna be rude or anything but seriously... I play on lower difficulties and make it more challenging by setting myself limitations, eg never declare myself. Or never take GPT from AI.
I can beat AI on deity but it's just not fun for me...

 

[Leucarum]

You aren't forced to play on any difficulty. I learned enough to compete at deity with help from these forums, and still fire it up from time to time, but it is a very different experience. To comfortably win on deity you do need to be laser-focussed and really once you've won the early game then it will usually be in your hands.

That said, while I'm glad that I did learn to beat deity, and still do from time to time, I probably mostly play on emperor these days. I find that allows for more variability in my strategy, and has a less frenetic early game... Plus I don't have to optimize every last detail and I can get a bit wackier, trying out sub-par but fun strategies based around specific wonders, civs, city layouts etc...

So maybe just do what you find fun? If your fun is trying to smash records and meet the biggest challenge the game has to offer then deity is your jam. If you just want to roleplay your civ, or play a relaxing game with a beer or a gin in one hand, set the difficulty lower.

 

[bengalryan9]

To comfortably win on deity you do need to be laser-focussed...

TBH I'm not even sure if that is completely true. I play exclusively on deity. I don't min/max anything, I don't chop, I don't use any of the "cheese" some do (ie, selling favor, taking advantage of AI exploits), I rarely initiate a war, I usually don't decide which victory condition I'm going to pursue until 3-4 eras into the game, I chase subpar wonders and build crappy districts, and I still meander my way to victory 9 times out of 10. The AI simply isn't very good at actually achieving victory so if you're not in a rush (playing for speed) you usually have plenty of time to get there. I'm not bragging or anything because I don't think I'm anything special as a player, I just don't think it's quite as bad as it's made out to be sometimes.

...really once you've won the early game then it will usually be in your hands.

This is really what it boils down to. Once you learn how to survive the first couple of eras and get used to that it's all downhill from there.

 

[_hero_]

Someone can develop an actually good AI rather than make the game impossible.

TBH I'm not even sure if that is completely true. I play exclusively on deity. I don't min/max anything, I don't chop, I don't use any of the "cheese" some do (ie, selling favor, taking advantage of AI exploits), I rarely initiate a war, I usually don't decide which victory condition I'm going to pursue until 3-4 eras into the game, I chase subpar wonders and build crappy districts, and I still meander my way to victory 9 times out of 10. The AI simply isn't very good at actually achieving victory so if you're not in a rush (playing for speed) you usually have plenty of time to get there. I'm not bragging or anything because I don't think I'm anything special as a player, I just don't think it's quite as bad as it's made out to be sometimes.

I think you two are kind of saying the same thing in a round about way.

The fact that the AI doesn't pursue victories all that well is why it's often perceived as not that hard. Likewise, the fact that the AI struggles to properly pursue victories is why they are given such significant bonuses in the early game that can make it seem unfun to play against. A smarter AI would be harder to beat in the long run without needing such an overwhelming advantage in the early game. It would open up some playstyle options as well.

The devs have made incremental improvements to the AI and supposedly the October patch includes some more. Hopefully, we'll eventually reach a point where winning on Diety isn't just a case of surviving early.

 

[Leucarum]

TBH I'm not even sure if that is completely true. I play exclusively on deity. I don't min/max anything, I don't chop, I don't use any of the "cheese" some do (ie, selling favor, taking advantage of AI exploits), I rarely initiate a war, I usually don't decide which victory condition I'm going to pursue until 3-4 eras into the game, I chase subpar wonders and build crappy districts, and I still meander my way to victory 9 times out of 10. The AI simply isn't very good at actually achieving victory so if you're not in a rush (playing for speed) you usually have plenty of time to get there. I'm not bragging or anything because I don't think I'm anything special as a player, I just don't think it's quite as bad as it's made out to be sometimes.



This is really what it boils down to. Once you learn how to survive the first couple of eras and get used to that it's all downhill from there.

Fair, I can't disagree with that. Most of the time the only point in the game where you really have to make sure you don't make mistakes is the early game. After that you can start to make suboptimal plays without it mattering as much. Which I guess comes back to the exponential gains that come from getting the early game right and why getting better at early game decisions is everything.

 

[Zenstrive]

LOL I tried immortal and marched on, conquering half the world and got defeated by Zulu's Science prowess.
Weird time.

 

[japanesesamurai]

I think you two are kind of saying the same thing in a round about way.

The fact that the AI doesn't pursue victories all that well is why it's often perceived as not that hard. Likewise, the fact that the AI struggles to properly pursue victories is why they are given such significant bonuses in the early game that can make it seem unfun to play against. A smarter AI would be harder to beat in the long run without needing such an overwhelming advantage in the early game. It would open up some playstyle options as well.

The devs have made incremental improvements to the AI and supposedly the October patch includes some more. Hopefully, we'll eventually reach a point where winning on Diety isn't just a case of surviving early.

Yes unless there is one or two unstoppable snowballing civs on the map. Could happen. In which case you have to eliminate them while getting your space stuff going at the same time. There’s currently a Quill18 game going on the youtube with The Gauls. He’s not the best civ 6 player, but the endgame there shows that a decent early game doesnt grant you a definite win. It’s these games that I think are the most excited ones. Unfortunately these type of games only come around once in a blue moon.
I didnt watch the earlier episodes so I’m not sure how he got himself in that position

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Yes unless there is one or two unstoppable snowballing civs on the map. In which case you have to eliminate them while getting your space stuff going at the same time.

Snowballing AIs on Deity are an interesting kind indeed.
I've learned that the AI can most certainly mess up an early snowball, but it can also further snowball out of control, and a lot of that depends on the particular civ in question.
I've had the Inca for instance coasting on 50 science per turn on the early Classical era, then a few turns later increasing their lead to 70 - signalling that they were about to spiral out of control (while their nearest competitors were at 30-40 spt max, and me at sub 10).
Then for some reason they started going heavily into religion and just completely messed up that snowball, letting other AIs eventually overtake them and me eventually taking some of their cities.
Overall, it turned out unnecessary for me to try to conquer them (I thought I had to in order to stop a snowball, but they really ended up stopping it themselves), so what I learned from that is to start looking for whether a supposedly snowballing civ is suddenly generating a lot of Great Prophet points (or for that matter, Great Writer points) - if they suddenly do that, they might be less of an immediate threat than anticipated.

Then you have civs like Korea and Kongo especially, those are usually much more dangerous in terms of snowballing.
Korea because the AI loves to spam unique features (Seowon in this case), and Kongo because they can't fall into the trap of going for Holy Sites with no clear purpose behind it.
Needless to say, if I see those two snowball early I'm much more wary overall.
And if they're direct neighbours, should be killed off immediately like you said, since things can get dicey fast if they (and they most likely will) keep going the science-heavy route.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The reason why I hate deity is not its early game. Early game Civ6 has its difficulty, fun to play with.

However, after a while~(T75 on standard speed, or T50 online speed etc.), the game become completely boring. The AIs seem never advances into new eras well, and always lag behind, you just take cities, take cities, take cities, research ahead, research further ahead, declare colonial war, no real challanges.

That's very dull. Most of the features of Civ6 lies in mid or late games, however only early game is a challenge, and mid or late game is very very easy. Why can't they synergize the features and difficulties? The interesting features like world congress, or electricity, or mid-late-game wonders, are in medieval and later eras, however only ancient era is a challenge.

 

[c4c6]

Most of the features of Civ6 lies in mid or late games, however only early game is a challenge, and mid or late game is very very easy.

In the beginning the human player lags behind. When he reaches a comfortable position the game becomes boring. I think, in order to recreate challenge, you must change the rules. Make it harder for the human player, so he is slower snowballing - eg. take away the extra yield on hills (compared to flatland), give weaker percentages on policy cards, reduce the extra governor titles from the secret societies mod etc. etc. AND make it easier for the AI players, so they are less lagging behind - eg. give them old techs&civics for free (more than 1 era behind human or X turns after human), give new AI units free promotions based on ranking of players regarding victory conditions, give AI players free units: offensive when they declare war / defensive when they are declared on ...

There is nothing like 'cheating of the AI players' or 'punishing the human player'. Just the single player, who decides which rules He wants to obey in order to find the level of challenge he likes.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Why is the AI so opposed to building walls? Maybe they should start walled on 7-8.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

In the beginning the human player lags behind. When he reaches a comfortable position the game becomes boring. I think, in order to recreate challenge, you must change the rules. Make it harder for the human player, so he is slower snowballing - eg. take away the extra yield on hills (compared to flatland), give weaker percentages on policy cards, reduce the extra governor titles from the secret societies mod etc. etc. AND make it easier for the AI players, so they are less lagging behind - eg. give them old techs&civics for free (more than 1 era behind human or X turns after human), give new AI units free promotions based on ranking of players regarding victory conditions, give AI players free units: offensive when they declare war / defensive when they are declared on ...

There is nothing like 'cheating of the AI players' or 'punishing the human player'. Just the single player, who decides which rules He wants to obey in order to find the level of challenge he likes.

Civ4 has the WFYABTA mechanism, that human players are allowed to trade much fewer techs than AI players, unless the human player develops and techs both at the bottom half.

Also both Civ4 and Civ5 have the "tech discount" mechanism that discounts tech cost if a tech is already researched by other Civs.

Why do Civ6 remove such catch-up designs?

 

[civac]

Civ4 deity has a similar issue. The ai starts essentially with two cities to your one, a worker and some basic worker techs already researched. If they attack you very early you are just dead. An attack can be avoided somewhat consistently through diplomacy though.

What they do get however is production and research bonuses that increase with each passing era. The research speed of a reasonably large late game ai civ is truly something to behold even on Immortal.

 

[gcampono]

I think, in order to recreate challenge, you must change the rules. Make it harder for the human player [...] AND make it easier for the AI players, so they are less lagging behind - eg. give them old techs&civics for free [...]

I do not consider myself a good player and I lose (or should I say give up) a fair share of deity games. But I must agree that the game after the early game becomes boring. However, there is only one solution that would be acceptable from my point of view, which is just to develop a better AI and more especially a less passive AI.

If you give the AI more bonuses it only delays the point where the challenge disappears.

The AI must be able to at least try to declare war on you and be competent enough to take some cities or at least have an impact if you don't protect your borders and should gang against you if you're a warmonger. They should also focus on achieving some victory conditions, not try all they can to NOT achieve any victory condition.

Of course the AI should not do so at all difficulty levels, but at least at deity it should.

 

[Cpt Chaos]

Why is the AI so opposed to building walls? Maybe they should start walled on 7-8.

The problem with this is that the AI needs help capturing more cities from other AI. Starting with walls will only make the AI even less likely to get a domination snowball going.

 

[lotrmith]

Lily has, in typical fashion, turned a "deity is too hard" thread with tips and advice into a "deity is too easy" thread with suggestions for making the AI smarter to make deity even harder.

 

[Mahi]

People are rerolling like crazy on deity but forget to say that when they say it's easy.
My only problem with deity is that there's no real difference in the challenge once you get over the early surprise wars.

Also people saying deity is easy often also play on fixed maps, rarely larger than standard maps. Winning on large maps with different continent separated by deep oceans, on standard speed is a completely different ball game in my opinion. Most maps on standard and below are much easier than the larger ones.

 

[MrRadar]

People are rerolling like crazy on deity but forget to say that when they say it's easy.

Careful with such generalisations, not all "people" are compulsive rerollers
I neither reroll, nor reload, so sometimes I happen to get killed in my cradle, but if not, yes it tends to be like that:

My only problem with deity is that there's no real difference in the challenge once you get over the early surprise wars.

And the real buzzkill on standard/speed size is the Diplomatic Victory. Now I get it before everything else whether I aim for it or no. AI may have and keep a huge tech lead but that means nothing, they're not focused and not fast enough, you have plenty of time.

Most maps on standard and below are much easier than the larger ones.

Might be, but who has the time for the large marathon ones?
I can barely fit in three standard speed/size games between those monthly patches.
By the way, have you tried Online speed deity and Tiny map, Pangea or Terra? Those ones can really get you a run for your money