How I won My First Deity Game (and how you can too!)

Civahaulic

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
Messages
69
Location
Brazi
How to win at Deity.

With civ 5 just days away, I wanted to quench my desire to best Civ 4 on the hardest setting - Deity.

In order to say you really beat it, IMO, the setting have to be:
Fractal
Standard map size
Normal Speed
Barbs on
Randomly selected opponents.

Random events were off, mainly because of the "You just lost your capital to a Barb uprising" event. Lucky huts were off, but I don't think that makes much of a difference.

I picked Ramsey as my leader because I knew from before I started that I wanted to squeak out an AP diplomatic victory. He has the 2 traits you want to win via AP Cheese: Spiritual (for frequent civ changes, cheap temples and monasteries) and Industrious (to build the AP). He also has the UB that lets you get Theology first: the obelisk. He also has great starting techs: Agriculture and The Wheel.

The first thing you need to do on deity is make sure the barbs don't kill you. That means building enough ARCHERS, AXEMEN, or WAR Chariots to fog bust and keep your city safe: Normally, this is about 6. Warriors are very weak at actually defending, but that first or 2nd one can explore and sometimes make it back to be your "we fear for our safety" sentry within your capital. Unless you have horses or copper in the BFC, (probably going to be researching AH before BW, but your map will dictate this), you will want archery and archers to fog bust. You will probably not have time to research both BW and AH before archery, before the barbs are causing havoc, so tech order is likely to be one or the other, and then archery if no special resource pops.

You will need at least one coastal city to win (to spread the AP religion).

After basic improvement techs and BW, you're going to need to research:

Myst
Writing,
Masonry
Monotheism,
Polytheism
Priesthood

You need all of them to be able to bulb Theology.

You also want to block your neighbor so you have enough room for a few cities. You can win with just one, (if it's coastal), but it will be much easier with around 4-7. If that neighbor happens to be shaka or monty, well, this guide isn't gonna be enough to help you. :(

Ideally, your neighbor will be one who loves brothers of the faith and who probably won't declare at pleased.

Spoiler :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attach...1&d=1240852053

Look at column BH of the leaderheads sheet. Value of 100 means they never plan war at pleased. It's based on BTS 317; not sure if there was any changes in 319.

Some of the ones who CAN declare at pleased but who I have never had a problem with for this type of strategy include:


1 MAO_ZEDONG
2 QIN_SHI_HUANG
3 VICTORIA
4 ELIZABETH
5 HUAYNA_CAPAC
6 ISABELLA
7 MANSA_MUSA
8 PACAL
9 ZARA_YAQOB


These leaders can still be dealt with, but are a little trickier:
BISMARCK
WILLEM_VAN_ORANJE
FRANKLIN_ROOSEVELT
KUBLAI_KHAN

Leaving these ones (though I'm not sure about Louis) as the real problem neighbors.

ALEXANDER
CATHERINE
LOUIS_XIV ???
MONTEZUMA
GENGHIS_KHAN
GILGAMESH
JULIUS_CAESAR
NAPOLEON
PETER
RAGNAR
SHAKA
STALIN
SURYAVARMAN
TOKUGAWA

So 14 out of 53 leaders could really throw a wrench into this strategy if they are your immediate neighbor. So you should be able (with random leaders selected) to manage to get a start without them next to you at least half the time.


Gift your neighbor(s) a non happiness resource as soon as you have writing. Open boarders ASAP.

You want to get your 2nd or 3rd city with a big food up and running with an Obelisk and running 2 specialist priests. You will use this priest to get theology, found Christianity, and build the AP.

The only turns in the game you will be in Christianity are the 5 turns from the turn before the Apostolic Palace is finished until the next possible switch (back to your neighbor's religion).

Next you will want to tech toward currency. If you can trade stuff cleverly, that's great, but In the game I won, I had CHARLEMAGNE as my only neighbor on the island and the only tech I was able to trade for the ENTIRE GAME was monarchy.

It didn't matter.

Spread Christianity in all your cites. Build Christian Temples and Monasteries.

If you have 2 neighbors, figure out which one of them you can get to +9 or +10 friendly. Spread Christianity to all of their cities. If you can do it for 2, that will make it easier. If you only have 1 neighbor (like I had) then that's all you can do.

After currency, beeline for optics. And I mean beeline with build wealth and being at 100% science.

Then STOP TECHING AND BUILD WEALTH. You don't need any other techs to win the game, unless it's for a Fav Civic (see below)

Go meet the other civs. The turn you meet them, ask for open boarders. Do not trade with any of these civs until you have met with all civs.

You can usually get open boarders gifting a tech, going to no state religion, or (if they already have all your techs), give them gold. Don't give them techs on the Astronomy line, because the sooner they have Astronomy, the sooner you get DOWed and lose the game.

In my game, one of other civs was TOKUGAWA. That meant I had to tech up to BANKING, go to his fav civ (merch), no state religion, and Give him 800 gold before he would open borders with me.

When you are making changes out of your state religion (the one of your neighbors), ask them for gold the turn before you do it, 50 gold is fine. That will give you 10 turns of peace if they accept.

Prove the world is round.

If you meet a civ or 2 with no state religion, you will spread Christianity to the LAST and to their SMALLEST city. Don't get crazy, you don't need to find the absolute smallest, but don't do a 16 pop either. You only want to spread it to one city for all overseas civs, and to one of their smaller cites at that. IF they are in theology, you can gift them the missionary (which sometimes works) or BRIBE them into Organized religion with your stash of cash.

Use your Gold supply to bribe your close neighbors for an additional +4 trade relations boost.

One last tip, take advantage of daisy chaining missionaries on Caravels. You Can move a Carvel 4 spaces (if you proved the world is round) and have another Carvel their waiting for it, unload the missionary to the unmoved Carvel, Rinse and repeat. By doing this, you can move a missionary half way around the world 2 turns!

I didn't even try for liberalism, good thing too, as it went in 420 AD and I had no trading partner.

I won the diplomatic victory in 1280 AD. Can you do the same or better? I bet you can!

Questions? Comments?
 
The first thing you need to do on deity is make sure the barbs don't kill you. That means building enough ARCHERS, AXEMEN, or WAR Chariots to fog bust and keep your city safe: Normally, this is about 6. Warriors are very weak at actually defending, but that first or 2nd one can explore and sometimes make it back to be your "we fear for our safety" sentry within your capital. Unless you have horses or copper in the BFC, (probably going to be researching AH before BW, but your map will dictate this), you will want archery and archers to fog bust. You will probably not have time to research both BW and AH before archery, before the barbs are causing havoc, so tech order is likely to be one or the other, and then archery if no special resource pops.

An extra note - axemen are the worst option here - in fact the warrior is not much worse. You want to stick with the more versatile chariots or the cheaper but almost as effective archers (or warriors which can be built ASAP).
 
Cheese-win as it's commonly called.

In most players' book that isn't beating Deity. It's the same as playing JC on a Duel map against Gandhi and Praetorian rushing him.

Funnily, this was one of the ways TMIT would move up a difficulty level to get accustomed to the AI bonuses and extra maintenance :)
 
It's the same as playing JC on a Duel map against Gandhi and Praetorian rushing him.

Wow: surprised you feel that way. Taking advantage of a game mechanic = selecting opponent, number of opponents and map size?

Why not just say the same about using a globe drafting city? Or about playing anything other than Random Personalities?

Hell, I would submit that playing on Marathon or Epic is cheesier than going for an AP victory.
 
Sorry, I did not put it clearly, let me try to explain:

The AI is not coded to defend itself against potential Religious Victories (or any victory for that matter).

It's stacking the deck in your favor to pick :
Ramesses vs JC
spawn a GP using the Obelisk vs build a barracks and 2/3 settlers
to bulb Theology vs tech Iron Working
build AP and win vs Praet rush 1 opponent

There is about as much skill involved. A win is a win yes, but most players here don't feel that is "beating Deity" fair and square.
 
"Yep, that it sounds more like a guide to win Prince."

I'd Imagine it would work on prince too, but then you can take out the part about worrying about barbs.

And the part about needing to bulb theology: you can just research it.

And the part about worrying about shaka or monty . . . or anyone. They all suck at prince.

Hell, you can probably turn on worker automation and automate city production as well, and the strategy will still work.

Good luck at getting over that prince hump, though.
 
The AI is not coded to defend itself against potential Religious Victories (or any victory for that matter).

Well, the AI is not coded to make a Globe drafting city. If you abuse one, is your victory still "pure"?

What about abusing your knowledge of how the AI's will react? Wouldn't Random Personalities be a more "Pure" win?
 
OK, but your JC example - does it work on:

Fractal
Standard map size
Normal Speed
Barbs on
Randomly selected opponents.
 
Well, the AI is not coded to make a Globe drafting city. If you abuse one, is your victory still "pure"?

What about abusing your knowledge of how the AI's will react? Wouldn't Random Personalities be a more "Pure" win?

It's all a matter of opinion. If you want to add the rule that you can't chop forests, do it. I'll watch :)

All I'm saying is it's considered cheesy by most people.

Any pure game should be played at Noble level (equal footing, right?) so it defeats the purpose further.
 
Diplo is just not a very impressive way to win, like internet/space or raging barbs/wall.
In all of those wins you pull it off coz the AI doesn't "know" what it should go for first, considering the settings/circumstances.
 
the only win that can be called "win" is domination/conquest. seriously, would you say that a pope is a winner because he is a religious leader? or that you've won because you're on a planet lightyears away first? it's about ruling the earth, therefore win = domination/conquest. in a real hard setting (e.g. horsehockey startposition + crazy neighbours) i'd consider a well played culture/diplo U.N. win as a "win" also, but AP? hell no, it's just abusing the poorly scripted AI (at least true for that special matter)

personally i'm only satisfied if i'm ruler of the whole planet :> btw, i'm pretty sure that your "strategy" was posted close to 100 times on this board already. maybe not as a walkthrough like here, but it was described and thought trough alot of times.
 
internet/space is abusive on deity?

Wow - I'm learning so much in this thread.

And yes, I know that this type of strategy has been posted before. But after 4 years, pretty much everything has been posted here before: and if no one cares / finds value in these types of posts, I guess there's really no reason for me to post any more.

Good Luck everyone. And Goodbye.
 
I actually have to agree with the OP to some extent.

I don't think he is trying to make an argument for AP wins not being somewhat cheesy, more that it is still a viable win strategy on Deity that requires no "extra special" circumstances to complete and does require tactical use of game mechanics that most "prince" players have very little grasp of.

The JC duel ghandi example, while also cheesy, is tailored to accept that cheese. Praet rushing some nearby opponent MAY win you the game in a standard deity game but it is just one piece of the puzzle.

Therefor there is a significant difference, as I see it, between the OP's achievement and that theoretical one.

Not my preferred way to win, but that doesn't make it any less of a win.
 
I'm with Druin here. AP wins may be the easiest to achieve when you set out to get them, but that doesn't mean you didn't win. You just didn't win the hardest possible victory. Which would be something like a Deity OCC Huge Pangaea Always War, right? So why aren't you complaining that anyone who doesn't achieve that level of victory hasn't really beaten the game? Because you're calibrated to accept a certain difficulty of victory as being a "real" victory, and anything easier isn't "real". But that's just silly semantics.

Incidentally, I think it'd be amusing to see a contest for who can survive longest in the most ridiculously one-sided game settings possible that don't require worldbuildering yourself an all-desert starting location or some other silliness. I'm sure someone can come up with something worse than Deity OCC Huge Pangaea Always War. You'd "win" just by being alive when an AI achieved victory. :)
 
internet/space is abusive on deity?

Wow - I'm learning so much in this thread.

And yes, I know that this type of strategy has been posted before. But after 4 years, pretty much everything has been posted here before: and if no one cares / finds value in these types of posts, I guess there's really no reason for me to post any more.

Good Luck everyone. And Goodbye.

I wouldn't put much stock into Casi's comments, but that's just me. Bye :)
 
I want to express my simpathy for the OP. I agree about the controversy on what is exploitive and what isn't.

TMIT can play with the guarantee that he won't be attacked by most of his neighbours because the guy has memorized the way every AI behaves. I don't see much difference from this to winning via AP.

Also, what about liberalism? People always manage to win that, even in deity, simply because the AI is also no coded to go like crazy for it, which it should do, because that race is incredibly important, as we human players proof. In fact, it's problably even more important to the AI, because by winning it they deprive the human from doing so, and that's one of the few points in the game in which you can overperfom the AI, being usually the starting point from which the ever present renaissence war will be fought to win the human the game.

That's what I always see you top players doing to win. So my point is: winning the lib/renaissence war race is not different from winning the AP race. The AI is coded not to persue any of the two.

Let me finish by saying I NEVER won a religious victory. I don't like it either. But I would not question the deity victory of another player just because that's the path he choosed.
 
I'm sure someone can come up with something worse than Deity OCC Huge Pangaea Always War. You'd "win" just by being alive when an AI achieved victory. :)

raging barbs / no tech trading / random events / huts on - that's definitely worse.

i'm not saying "anything beside conquest/domination isn't a win", but AP for sure isn't a win. it's just pure abusing, as sad as it is. bulb theo, find christianity, build ap, tech optics, gift the AI missionaries and vote yourself to victory ._. the hardest part about it is if the AI is in theocracy, but that's as hard as it can get.

U.N. is alot harder as it comes later and needs alot more population to vote yourself to victory, or good diplo handling. culture needs alot more knowledge about the game and some diplo skills. space needs land, resources, techs ... AP needs theology, maybe optics and alphabet for caravels and spies ~~

there's no shame in not-beating deity, imo. i'm only playing immortal myself because i'm just too lazy to play deity - but winning by AP THIS way is nothing more than bug abusing to me. but hey, i'm judging no one who has fun by winning this way. some time ago i worldbuildered myself the most ridiculous start position for an OCC (EVERY resource in reach, 20 settled scientiests right away etc.) and had alot of fun flying through the techs ;)
 
It's a bit like shortcutting a marathon. You crossed the finish line but you didn't do the hard work.
 
Top Bottom