How to elevate my game?

[Thurman Merman]

I win 90% of the time on Emperor - if I get a good starting location. But, its normally in the late 300s. I could shave off about 20 turns in most cases, but I'm a conservative player.

I read guides on here about how to win on Diety with this civ or that, but they all seem pretty risky (i.e., I might get punked at turn 150, then I would have wasted all that time).

So, any guides you love or tips you have that a Diety player knows, but an Emperor player doesn't grasp?

What did you Deity winners do to take that final step?

 

[adsin15]

I win 90% of the time on Emperor - if I get a good starting location. But, its normally in the late 300s. I could shave off about 20 turns in most cases, but I'm a conservative player.

I read guides on here about how to win on Diety with this civ or that, but they all seem pretty risky (i.e., I might get punked at turn 150, then I would have wasted all that time).

So, any guides you love or tips you have that a Diety player knows, but an Emperor player doesn't grasp?

What did you Deity winners do to take that final step?

there is a great thread up right now about how to micromanage specialists and citizens in your cities. Im the same as you and I learned a lot from it. I used to get plowed under at around turn 150 on immortal. Now i survive every game but i lose to ai SV every time.

My issue is gold management. I cant maintain an army without massive gold negatives...like -100 gpt for a hundred turns or more.

 

[MIS]

I beat Deity every time. I am far from the best player on the site.

The best way to learn IMHO is to do the challenge games. Acken has a series up somewhere. Play through the game (you'll probably lose), but then watch how Acken plays. Acken is one of the very, very best players in the world (much better than me). I think it's important to play the game first: they make it look so easy that you'll only see the greatness of what they do if you try it first.

You can also look at his youtube site playlists (RezoAcken). Maddjinn also has great let's plays. I may alienate both: Maddjinn's have more talk on his thought process. I think Acken may be the better player. They're both better than me.

It's worth noting that I've never found gold an issue on Deity, because the AI's have so much that trade routes and trading resources will beef you up.

Good luck!

 

[Sclb]

Hint: If you have crushed an AI enough, they might offer cities in peacedeals. DON'T take cities but instead take all their gold and gpt. Additionally, sell captured cities to other AI, especially ones you have DoF with and you also get gold this way. For a domination victory, you only need capitals, so you don't need to keep other cities unless it blocks your access or it contains good wonders.

 

[z284pwr]

Honest suggestion...don't play Emperor. Immortal or Deity simply because anything below that the AI is just to incompetent to be able to keep a steady stream of gold to afford cash trades for luxuries and research agreements.
It pretty much goes anything below Immortal is a sandbox and you can pretty much to whatever you want, whenever you want and still win the game unless you are playing extremely sloppy and neglecting military.
Immortal, you can still play quite sloppy and neglect citizen management more but you have to watch your wonder building a bit closer as you will have more competition early game. Warmonger neighbors are going to be a bigger threat as well. But at this difficulty the game can still be more casual fun.
Deity definitely requires a lot more focus and care over what you are doing. AI has gold so they can actually afford military and on the plus side can generally afford flood gold luxury trades and research agreements.

 

[Thurman Merman]

I beat Deity every time. I am far from the best player on the site.

The best way to learn IMHO is to do the challenge games. Acken has a series up somewhere. Play through the game (you'll probably lose), but then watch how Acken plays. Acken is one of the very, very best players in the world (much better than me). I think it's important to play the game first: they make it look so easy that you'll only see the greatness of what they do if you try it first.

You can also look at his youtube site playlists (RezoAcken). Maddjinn also has great let's plays. I may alienate both: Maddjinn's have more talk on his thought process. I think Acken may be the better player. They're both better than me.

It's worth noting that I've never found gold an issue on Deity, because the AI's have so much that trade routes and trading resources will beef you up.

Good luck!

Thanks!

 

[Thurman Merman]

Honest suggestion...don't play Emperor. Immortal or Deity simply because anything below that the AI is just to incompetent to be able to keep a steady stream of gold to afford cash trades for luxuries and research agreements.

Interesting that you say this. I always see advice about selling early luxes for gold; but in my Emperor games, the AI never has much gold to trade. Gonna try an Immortal start right now.

 

[cazaderonus]

I win 90% of the time on Emperor - if I get a good starting location. But, its normally in the late 300s. I could shave off about 20 turns in most cases, but I'm a conservative player.

I read guides on here about how to win on Diety with this civ or that, but they all seem pretty risky (i.e., I might get punked at turn 150, then I would have wasted all that time).

So, any guides you love or tips you have that a Diety player knows, but an Emperor player doesn't grasp?

What did you Deity winners do to take that final step?

If you want to test yourself in deity, try an archipelago map. 90% of the time you ll be alone on your starting small island which will avoid early ganks by AI. Just send ships early to meet civilizations instead of scouts.

This rather safe military setup will allow you to test your knowledge of the mecanics and eventually try new things you can see in guides or lets plays

My first deity win was archipelago with Siam. Ended with a diplomatic win in turn 250ish.

 

[danaphanous]

The only problem with archipelago is it nerfs a lot of AI. Most play badly on water maps and waste their Deity advantage. It could be as easy as immortal. but I guess it could be a good way to practice 🙂 It won't get you ready for general deity though because learning to handle early rushes is part of the game on immortal and deity. The challenge is never can you out tech the AI...of course you can on any game. It's if you can handle the scenarios when your formula gets disrupted. That's my opinion at least and it's the main thing that makes deity deity.

 

[MightySpice]

Honest suggestion...don't play Emperor. Immortal or Deity simply because anything below that the AI is just to incompetent to be able to keep a steady stream of gold to afford cash trades for luxuries and research agreements.
It pretty much goes anything below Immortal is a sandbox and you can pretty much to whatever you want, whenever you want and still win the game unless you are playing extremely sloppy and neglecting military.

This is a bit contradictory. Below immortal the ai can't help you enough because it has no gold. At the same time you state that emperor is easy and you can pretty much make any mistake and get away with it.
You seem to make the point that below immortal is harder, because of little support from the ai gold wise.

 

[adsin15]

This is a bit contradictory. Below immortal the ai can't help you enough because it has no gold. At the same time you state that emperor is easy and you can pretty much make any mistake and get away with it.
You seem to make the point that below immortal is harder, because of little support from the ai gold wise.

I think he means that the strategies that work on immortal/deity cant be used on difficulty levels lower than immortal.

Playing on emperor to prep for Deity is like doing batting practice for baseball but using a softball.

You are practicing skills that simply dont work at higher levels.

Immortal is a HUGE jump from Emperor. Deity is a hop above Immortal.

 

[poxpower]

Watch acken on youtube. I don't even understand what I'm doing wrong compared to him, that's how good he is lol. Just destroys me. There's a game with a casual turn 228 science victory on deity. No matter how hard I try I can't beat turn 260-270, I have no clue what I'm doing wrong.

He just knows how to suck value out of every single exploit in the game.

 

[Acken]

Im also taking hige risks sometimes. Happens that i end up with my pants down especially in my mod where the ai is more agressive. Hell I have huge troubles beating deity on standard settings on it anyway .

That said its perfectly reasonable to take 25 30 more turns and play more safely. Especially when your goal is winning rather than speed. The economic principles i show stay the same but you might want build a few more units or your own workers.

 

[poxpower]

This is a bit contradictory. Below immortal the ai can't help you enough because it has no gold. At the same time you state that emperor is easy and you can pretty much make any mistake and get away with it.
You seem to make the point that below immortal is harder, because of little support from the ai gold wise.

It's easier to slingshot yourself towards a faster win on immortal/deity, because the AI has so much gold, but the AI is a lot harder to compete with.

For instance on deity, it's not rare to see the AI have 20k gold. You can get all that and buy spaceship parts through loans, which probably speeds up space victory by like.. 5-10 turns. Also easier to get research agreements when you have the spare gold.

But the game is overall much harder because the AI has crazy amounts of units and they're insanely aggressive and prone to dropping settlers EVERYWHERE. They will generate 10 great generals by the end of the game and just citadel all over the place.

 

[MightySpice]

It's easier to slingshot yourself towards a faster win on immortal/deity, because the AI has so much gold, but the AI is a lot harder to compete with.

Ah, that makes sense.

 

[Redaxe]

The main thing to take out of Diety is to stop wonder whoring and devote your early turn to building settlers. The sooner you get your core cities out and hopefully a National College soon after the quicker your game will end.

 

[Thurman Merman]

The main thing to take out of Diety is to stop wonder whoring and devote your early turn to building settlers. The sooner you get your core cities out and hopefully a National College soon after the quicker your game will end.

I think this is where I went wrong in my current game. I'm Pacal, standard speed, large map, 1 less civ, 1 more CS. Found myself on a pretty big continent with 3 CS and Indonesia. Beelined to Theology, used the GS to found an academy, but didn't found my second city until after the NC. In the meantime, got a religion (did get Desert Folklore, and tithe - most of the other good ones got snagged by the first 2 civs to pop a religion).

So this is me at turn 80 with my own decent religion, about to get a GS, and the NC done. Feeling pretty good about myself.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=681417633

But, knowing what I know now - Indonesia with 7 cities is gonna be a pain, and Palanque is too small.

So, here's turn 106:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=681417685

I simply took way too long to spread out. When I forward settled Tikal to hog the great Eastern Desert for myself, it got real. Because he has more troops and money, he won't make peace.

So, this is me 60 turns later having gotten very little progress growing because I'm fighting to shred his muskets in the forests and marshes east of Tikal (luckily, since so many of the good belief were gone, I took holy warriors and used it to spam out crossbows every several turns - really shifted the fight my way).

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=681420110

I think in another 20 turns, I can take Surabya (I'm gonna use one of my GGs to plant a citadel right next to it, and buy some catapults to upgrade to Trebuchets before my holy warriors expires) - I need to do it before he takes out Hong Kong (my CS ally in the south - found a use for that damn GM the Maya made me pop - allied them at a critical point in the war).

It's been fun, and I'll win this fight, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to wake up to find every other civ is light years ahead of me - I started this war at #3 in tech - now I'm #6.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

The biggest reason why you struggle at Immortal/Deity is because you settle way too late.

If you are playing Tradition all four cities should be down by T50. Ideally though you should be aiming for T40 and lower.

Also never get Catapults. Don't use siege in general until Cannons. Trebuchets aren't neccessarily bad, but especially for someone who is not a top warmongers Crossbows will always outperform them.

 

[Thurman Merman]

The biggest reason why you struggle at Immortal/Deity is because you settle way too late.

If you are playing Tradition all four cities should be down by T50. Ideally though you should be aiming for T40 and lower.

I'm realizing that. Should not have held off until I had the NC.

ETA: But after reflection, T40? Wow, I'm gonna have to really rethink my starts. I went Scout, Scout, Shrine on this one - that was about 18 turns there.

 

[poxpower]

The main thing to take out of Diety is to stop wonder whoring and devote your early turn to building settlers. The sooner you get your core cities out and hopefully a National College soon after the quicker your game will end.

Definitely.
The only early wonder worth going for is the Oracle. If you can finish it before turn 75, you usually get it.

The only midgames ones I ever try for are Forbidden Palace and Petra.

Pyramids are also nice if you can get them. The extra workers and worker speed is great early on and then in the late game you get a free great engineer to rush like eiffel tower or something. Pretty sweet, but if the AI has liberty he'll get them by turn 40-50 so yah...