I can't do it! (deity)

[Snaaty]

check my sig, the "bts-guide, emperor and above..."-link (or something similar, sig not showing when posting).

there are pics, a demo game and a walkthrough (on the first 2 pages, rest are comments). simply download the starting save and try to repeat it step by step. look at the inbetween saves to check what i was doing and how you compare.

it´s an easy map and leader on deity. if you can get into a winning positon with the demo game, you are somewhat prepared for "real" games good luck, have fun

 

[Ondskan]

Followed some tips and I almost did it! Sadly got into a 2 front war. But if I reload and build some troops I think I can hold one of them and buy out the other.
I'm trying to culture flip but he has SO many troops it's not working. I Seriously have 2 cities surrounded by culture, two more about to get surrounded, two in the south also seriously under pressure!

 

[pepe26]

moving from emperor to deity is pretty much a hopeless cause on my eyes. when i started playing a bit of civ4 late in 2011, i was beating prince easily but struggled on monarch... i almost thought higher difficulties are unbeatable until i started reading on this forum and watching videos from TMIT and later AZ. these guys pulled off stuff i hadnt ever thought about and revealed so many tactics and stretegies that i was quickly able to emperor pretty much 100%. it took me while, tho, to be able to compete with immortal AIs. at the moment i still lose more than 50% of immortal games. on bad maps with weak territory i cant win. im on the verge of beating my first deity game ever but have to many weaknesses yet. this little intro to make you aware of what i can and cant do...

after reading your first post, it was obvious to me that you werent gonna be able to beat deity (and also immortal for that matter) there is a lot of details that need to be done correctly even if you have a rough but effective strategy that you follow.

if you continue to try and beat deity with these freestyle "strategies" you will accomplishment one thing and one thing only: frustration
thats how i tried to beat emperor and it didnt work. imagining to try and beat deity this way is amusing to me

 

[Cusanus]

I'm trying to culture flip but he has SO many troops it's not working. I Seriously have 2 cities surrounded by culture, two more about to get surrounded, two in the south also seriously under pressure!

Post some saves and screenshots, please.

You keep saying funny things; I'd love to actually see some of them.
[Culture flipping is rare on Immortal and much rarer on Deity. I don't think you should ever try culture flipping on these levels when playing for efficiency. But it might be fun to see you trying.]

- - -
About admtanaka's tip to not research Bronze Working - that was a joke. You should get BW early.
- - -

I want to say this twice, because it's important: post some saves and screenshots, please.
Without them, it's impossible to give you good advice; and it's actually quite hard to believe that you're even beating Immortal regularly without screens/saves. And I aggree with what others already told you: the step from Immortal to Deity is huge. No use trying Deity before you win Immortal comfortably ~70%+.

 

[coanda]

Well I usually go Alphabet and Aesthetics or Currency, heck I even got aesthetics free once in a hut. But it was in a game I was amassing troops instead of expanding. But catch this.

It's pretty rare to self-tech both Alpha and Aesthetics if the AIs are keeping up in research (which is always true on Deity) - usually you trade one for the other?

Despite my vast army of like 10 bowmen + some in cities one AI DOW:ed me. I managed to defend for quite a long time. So I can't understand how you can go all out on techs and you don't get dow:ed?

AI DoWs are not marginally deterred by power. There is a certain cutoff relative to their power which is ridiculously high, especially with Deity unit-spamming rates; it's really not worth considering... I think it's like 1.5x their power or something, and if you have that much power you should just be killing them and taking their land anyway. Once you have more than that cutoff power, the AI will not attack you... but as I said, it's pretty high.

With even one single warrior less than that power, they are just as likely to attack you as with no units at all. An army of 10 archers is no more of a deterrent than an army of 2 archers, but the latter is a lot cheaper which means less hammers wasted and lower upkeep. Keep your army minimal, use diplomacy to keep AIs fighting each other if possible, keep an eye on WHEOOHRN status, be ready to whip and chop an army on a moment's notice if needed.

Also how do you deal with massive corruption from Civ expansion? What is your general early civ size? I tried to get my capital to 5 and my normal cities to 3.

With only a few exceptions, you want to grow your cities right up to their happy cap as soon as possible (one big exception is that you generally want to get some workers and a settler out of your capital before it hits happy cap). Increasing your happy cap should also be a relatively early priority - size-6 and size-7 cities are far more productive than size-4 and size-5!

Which civs do you start with?

I think almost all the regular Deity players on this forum just go Random, and are confident playing just about any civ. The impacts from civilization and leader are not nearly as important as factors like a good starting BFC, good luck with neighboring AIs, and other map-specific stuff.

Do you ever manage to attack first and win?

Usually humans who attack first win. 5 minutes of browsing this forum would probably find several dozen Deity games in which the human attacked first and won. You have to pick the right moment to attack and really commit all-out to it though - hit too soon and you may stifle early development, hit too late and the AIs may be running away from you in size and tech. It's map-dependent and is a tough call made based on experience; I can't really give you guidelines for it.

Genghis was my first basic strategy. Getting horses though, a huge ing issue. I try to expand, if I expand to fast they are already to strong, rarely if ever do I get horses close to me. =(

My big advice here would be to play the map, not the leader and civ. Going into a game planning (before turn 1) to do a horse-archer rush is a good way to flat-out lose most of your games.

Interesting,he's going for Great Persons very early. I tried this in one game to I think, the one that I did best in
But i cant believe how good land he gets

AbsoluteZero's land in his Genghis 39 is better than average, but not absurdly so; if you've really been trying lots of Deity maps, I'm surprised you haven't run into any like that yet. That said, I'm gonna go ahead and say it's not the land that's making him win. Every now and then people post their "pathological" Deity maps then run into where every bit of map-generation luck is just breaking the wrong way... and invariably a couple players promptly post victories off of them.

I'm gonna try ONE LAST GAME

It sounds to me like somewhere around Emperor would be a more appropriate difficulty for you right now; you might want to try that. Civ4 Deity is hard, and I don't know of anyone who just sat down and started winning Deity without working their way up through at least a couple wins on Emperor and Immortal.

 

[pepe26]

"About admtanaka's tip to not research Bronze Working - that was a joke. You should get BW early." there is an entire thread on the benifits of skipping bw early, so there is a good chance, he was being serious about this

 

[Ondskan]

Well guys look I beat Immortal to prove it so let's drop that discussion. Well fine, I didn't beat it, the guy I was leading over got a cultural victory but I count that as beating I always "Play now" and with all rules and huts and everything on. So I may not have won the game but I can certainly handle it.

Nvm screenies coming soon! Problem solved.

Oki so Take 1-2 is the Deity game. I even included the savegame if someone wants to check it out and give some ideas. Try the game to if you want, it's quite balanced and fun imo. Here you have immensly powerful cultural influence and a huge concentration of wonders. Your weakness is your army, you're also surrounded by the two most technically advanced kingdoms in the game. Hannibal will invade in a few turns so my attempt now is to stop researching and upgrade my whole army. I almost managed to hold him unupgraded using a massive switch in civics (takes 0 turns for me cause I have christ our lord with us or at least his huge statue). But I will start sooner next time when I have time to play.

The second screenie is of my immortal game. Not long after I managed to take both those rivals on my own continent, backstabbing Rome as he attacked Egypt, then killing Egypt then almost killing Rome and vassaling him. I was preparing an all out invasion of the Otomans to the north and was leading in points when the koreans got cultural victory.



Edit: Changed save to a better one that's not so experimental, change civics if you want. I would. Military buildup now in process awaiting the coming invasion and/or preparing a last ditch invasion of the South.

Game name also changed.

 

[pepe26]

im hoping that by "i almost won a game on immortal once" you really mean "i crush immortal easy peasy"

 

[Ondskan]

im hoping that by "i almost won a game on immortal once" you really mean "i crush immortal easy peasy"

Why do you hope that? It was my first game, I don't crush them at all.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Play more Immortal, you are underestimating how much work you need to put in to beat Deity. If you want a fun relaxed game just play Immortal. If you want to question every little thing you do play deity.

 

[Ondskan]

moving from emperor to deity is pretty much a hopeless cause on my eyes. when i started playing a bit of civ4 late in 2011, i was beating prince easily but struggled on monarch... i almost thought higher difficulties are unbeatable until i started reading on this forum and watching videos from TMIT and later AZ. these guys pulled off stuff i hadnt ever thought about and revealed so many tactics and stretegies that i was quickly able to emperor pretty much 100%. it took me while, tho, to be able to compete with immortal AIs. at the moment i still lose more than 50% of immortal games. on bad maps with weak territory i cant win. im on the verge of beating my first deity game ever but have to many weaknesses yet. this little intro to make you aware of what i can and cant do...

after reading your first post, it was obvious to me that you werent gonna be able to beat deity (and also immortal for that matter) there is a lot of details that need to be done correctly even if you have a rough but effective strategy that you follow.

if you continue to try and beat deity with these freestyle "strategies" you will accomplishment one thing and one thing only: frustration
thats how i tried to beat emperor and it didnt work. imagining to try and beat deity this way is amusing to me

Well n00b I proved you wrong. Shut up.

 

[itsnotmeee]

I play and win on Immortal at 1500s at a consistent basis. I get to the point where i get bored of Immortal. I played and won a couple Deity games, the rest...I get my butt kicked. There's a lot of work on Deity. You can be careless and play recklessly and make a few mistakes and still can win on Immortal. On Deity, you almost have to be error-less.

 

[Cusanus]

Well guys look I beat Immortal to prove it so let's drop that discussion. Well fine, I didn't beat it, the guy I was leading over got a cultural victory but I count that as beating

I count that as losing. But definitions vary...

[Most people aggree that winning by AP is not winning at all. So you added that losing to culture isn't losing.... whatever...]

 

[Manco Capac]

I count that as losing. But definitions vary...

[Most people aggree that winning by AP is not winning at all. So you added that losing to culture isn't losing.... whatever...]

Depends on what kind of AP. If you let the AI spread the AP state religions, build the AP, basically do all the things in that regards and then pose a regard on AP victory, then it is a bit better of a victory to win through the intricacies the AI's usually create with the random behaviours.

Indeed, building the AP after oracling or bulbing Theo and keeping control of the religion is indeed less shiny. Not mentioning all the bugs and tricks that come along the AP.

 

[Ondskan]

Didn't loose it didn't win it. Not much one can do on continents at Deity if one of them decides to rush culture. Possibly what will beat me now to. Just did a testrun against Hannibal and I can hold him. I can kill Portugal to I guess. But France will culture me in approximately 50 turns.

There's probably a chance if I go back some saves and build culture in my second two cities that I can catch up but that's just boring. As is getting nukes, it's such a cheese tactic, the computer never uses them first.

Btw I got AP but never got voted. Got UN to, never get voted. Could start gifting stuff I guess, probably something I'll try and then get the world against France.


My biggest mistake was having open borders with Hannibal. I listened to some tips about culture flipping on a video and tried to do that but he kept flooding the cities with troops. By the time I canceled the deal it was to late.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

If you can't out speed deity culture you have lost not won. You will always lose if you can't beat their culture, or stop it.

 

[Ondskan]

Meh. If you check videos like those posted here earlier you'll see that even in a game where Isabella is twice the size of him she still has half the culture of what France has in my game.

It's the usual thing on Continents. The AI feels safer so it doesn't build as many troops and instead culture/research rushes on its cities.

I've not won a game of Civ in a very long time. I rarely go for it anyway, even on Emperor unless it ends up being either a point victory or a space victory. I'm more about leading the game and staying alive, that to me is playing on par. Tbh I don't think I've ever won any domination victory on any map excep Pangea simply because transporting troops is the most boring think I know and because when you're about to do it you already know you got it in your pocket. I might have done it on Archipelago in Civ 3, also playing Deity or Demi God but that was a long time ago.

Again it's easy to do something abusive like nuke him or build some troops and then out of a sudden stop researching and go for culture but that feels fake to me. I think Charles is planning to attack him tho so I might get some transports and gift him units and techs but he won't reach Paris in time, I'm sure of it.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Izzy did not have the culture due to not going for it while France did. Fairly obvious to be honest. If you don't know how to stop culture you are just no where near good enough for deity. I don't see why you keep saying you are good enough when you can't win.

 

[Doshin]

The AI really struggles to win via Domination or Conquest on a map that involves water. Saying that you think a Culture loss to a builder on Continents "doesn't count" is like saying that you don't count a Domination loss to Julius Caesar on Pangaea.

I had a look at your save and, to be honest, I've no idea what you're doing Why all the culture?

When Hannibal declares, you'll be wiped out. If the diplo situation were better, you'd lose to Pacal via culture. If culture weren't on the cards, Hannibal would beat you to space. If you were to mass nuke Hannibal, the other AIs would declare on you. If the other AIs should choose not to declare on you, Charlie, Louis, and maybe even Joao/Pacal would win Space instead.

If you're serious about playing at a higher level, you should read some write-ups of high level games and/or watch some Youtube playthroughs by TMIT or AbsoluteZero.

 

[Ondskan]

No I already told you I can hold Hannibal and no I already told you it's France that has 3 cities close to legendary culture while I have 1, possibly 2 that can catch up. I dropped both movies and rock n roll in my capital, had I spread those two out perhaps I could catch up in raw culture.

You're asking me what I'm doing with all the culture, while at the same time the only thing I can't beat is Frances culture? I also told you I'm trying to culture flip. And the Culture is also a side effect of my wonder lead and partial tech lead.