[NFP] I lost at Deity and that means Firaxis did a good job

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

I have to say I'm glad I lost my last game
I played at Deity, on tiny Continents and Islands map, standard speed, with Dramatic Ages, Corporations and Barbarian Clans Modes, no AI mods. I played as Ethiopia against Kublai Khan (China), Rough Rider Teddy and Lady Six Sky. At the end, at around turn 350, America won Science Victory traveling at 3 light years per turn to an Exoplanet. I had a chance though: I was nearly 10 turns away from finishing the Statue of Liberty to win by Diplomacy. I intended to speed it up by chopping and harvesting whatever I could and putting Magnus in that city. I also mobilized my Apostles (my impressive Faith generation allowed it) to give a shot at Religious Victory as an alternative plan. I had also already traveled 10 light years of 50 when I lost.
I have to say the AI put aircraft to good use and built GDRs. I guess Dramatic Ages made the game harder (2 Dark Ages halted my development). Also, I relied upon Menelik II's 15% Science and Culture from Faith generation in cities on hills, thus building more Holy Sites. Instead, I maybe should have prioritized Campuses to win with Science.

Does anybody have similar losing experience at Deity?

 

[kaspergm]

The only times I've lost for a while is to early rushes, although I'm glad if AI becomes more adept at its late game play.

I had one game recently where I was actually worried I might lose to an AI religious victory, which would have been a first. I was on continent with Suleiman (Ottomans) and Peter (always bloody Peter ...), and of course the last religion got sniped just before I had enough points to recruit a prophet, so in spite I decided to eliminate both Suleiman and Peter, who had both founded a religion. Meanwhile, on his own continent, Frederick (Germany) had founded Catholism and had eliminated the last and only other religion on his continent, I think it was Gran Colombia. So it was only at this point I realized Frederick was the only remaining alive owner of a religion, and he started to send Apostles en masse to my continent:

Spoiler :

So I had to put a significant effort into spreading Eastern Orthodoxy (Peter's original religion) back on my continent in order to keep Frederick from converting the majority of my cities, which was not easy without the ability to recruit inquisitors, plus I had really bad luck in the draw with my apostle promotions and had to go through 5 or 6 apostles before finally getting one with debator promotion.

 

[Francel]

I agree it is fun to lose. More people should embrace it. While lacking the full picture, it sounds like maybe you had too many pots on the stove - going for diplomacy, science, and religion simultaneously. I find it helps on deity to go in with a plan, or at least formulate a plan quickly, and pursue a specific win condition.

On the lower difficulties, you don’t really have to have a grand strategy- it is possible to do whatever catches your fancy and still win (within reason). I find this is still a fun way to play deity, as long as you don’t mind losing.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

The only times I've lost for a while is to early rushes, although I'm glad if AI becomes more adept at its late game play.

I had one game recently where I was actually worried I might lose to an AI religious victory, which would have been a first. I was on continent with Suleiman (Ottomans) and Peter (always bloody Peter ...), and of course the last religion got sniped just before I had enough points to recruit a prophet, so in spite I decided to eliminate both Suleiman and Peter, who had both founded a religion. Meanwhile, on his own continent, Frederick (Germany) had founded Catholism and had eliminated the last and only other religion on his continent, I think it was Gran Colombia. So it was only at this point I realized Frederick was the only remaining alive owner of a religion, and he started to send Apostles en masse to my continent:

Spoiler :

View attachment 589610

So I had to put a significant effort into spreading Eastern Orthodoxy (Peter's original religion) back on my continent in order to keep Frederick from converting the majority of my cities, which was not easy without the ability to recruit inquisitors, plus I had really bad luck in the draw with my apostle promotions and had to go through 5 or 6 apostles before finally getting one with debator promotion.

Who is that leader you were playing as, by the way? I just can't recognize them from their icon!

I agree it is fun to lose. More people should embrace it. While lacking the full picture, it sounds like maybe you had too many pots on the stove - going for diplomacy, science, and religion simultaneously. I find it helps on deity to go in with a plan, or at least formulate a plan quickly, and pursue a specific win condition.

On the lower difficulties, you don’t really have to have a grand strategy- it is possible to do whatever catches your fancy and still win (within reason). I find this is still a fun way to play deity, as long as you don’t mind losing.

I was initially hoping to defeat America on my continent, but failed to capture even one of its cities. I underestimated Teddy and should have brought a bigger army. Then I thought I'd go for Science Victory, but had a hard time catching up with America and Maya in Science up until the end.
By the way, I played with the "No AI Start Advantage" mod, where AI players get no extra starting units, and no free tech/civic-boosts. This mod is supposed to make my Deity game a bit easier in the early game (preventing early AI rushes), but I lost in the end anyway) And, I do consider myself a good player, just in case

 

[iammaxhailme]

The only times I've lost for a while is to early rushes, although I'm glad if AI becomes more adept at its late game play.

I had one game recently where I was actually worried I might lose to an AI religious victory, which would have been a first. I was on continent with Suleiman (Ottomans) and Peter (always bloody Peter ...), and of course the last religion got sniped just before I had enough points to recruit a prophet, so in spite I decided to eliminate both Suleiman and Peter, who had both founded a religion. Meanwhile, on his own continent, Frederick (Germany) had founded Catholism and had eliminated the last and only other religion on his continent, I think it was Gran Colombia. So it was only at this point I realized Frederick was the only remaining alive owner of a religion, and he started to send Apostles en masse to my continent:

Spoiler :

View attachment 589610

So I had to put a significant effort into spreading Eastern Orthodoxy (Peter's original religion) back on my continent in order to keep Frederick from converting the majority of my cities, which was not easy without the ability to recruit inquisitors, plus I had really bad luck in the draw with my apostle promotions and had to go through 5 or 6 apostles before finally getting one with debator promotion.

I would mind losing less if it didn't take so long.

The only times I've ever lost outside of diety (where the AI get insane numerical bonuses) is surprise religious losses if I didn't get a religion that game

 

[kaspergm]

Who is that leader you were playing as, by the way? I just can't recognize them from their icon!

It's a mod: Civ5 leaders reborn, Pacal:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2139320165

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Lost plenty of times to early rushes on Immortal and Deity. The worst being when I was Babylonia and I had fully anticipated it. Roosevelt and his starting continent bonus did just enough.

As many have commented on, the early game difficulty is not the issue. If anything, that is too great. It is later in the game that the AI can't cope.

 

[TreVor_ish]

As many have commented on, the early game difficulty is not the issue. If anything, that is too great. It is later in the game that the AI can't cope.

Pretty much the only reason I have a toggle in advanced options for Babylon.
Tweaked version when I choose Hammurabi, and vanilla when not. AI Hammurabi can be a nice opponent (Fxs did program his eureka play rather well) middle/late game with his AT Crew in medieval (specially if he is my neighbor), also he makes Barbarians forces stronger (up an Era).

 

[Vizurok]

I was initially hoping to defeat America on my continent, but failed to capture even one of its cities. I underestimated Teddy and should have brought a bigger army. Then I thought I'd go for Science Victory, but had a hard time catching up with America and Maya in Science up until the end.
By the way, I played with the "No AI Start Advantage" mod, where AI players get no extra starting units, and no free tech/civic-boosts. This mod is supposed to make my Deity game a bit easier in the early game (preventing early AI rushes), but I lost in the end anyway) And, I do consider myself a good player, just in case

No offense, but I would advise you to be more humble about your self-assessment of being a good player. A good player would have a clear plan for winning a game and would act throughout the game accordingly. Instead of that, you just played a messy game that led to nowhere - not being able to build an early Industrial wonder by T350 is not exactly a sign of playing the game well.

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly agree with your original post, I consider it favorable that Firaxis does not let a player beat the hardest difficulty with such imprecise gameplay (even thought it wasn't even a real Deity game).

 

[Taefin]

Dramatic ages can really make no-starting-adv diety games interesting. I prefer the smoother difficulty mod and crank up the era score requirements a bit (eg 24 for golden classical at online) so that I almost always get dark classical. Losing one of your cities during your opening war with the AI certainly puts some interesting constraints on forward setting and unit positioning to recapture it, and will give the AI a major loyalty advantage to the point you really need to break through their entire empire to keep any of the cities you capture in a dark age. The arrested momentum has put me in some very evenly match wars with the AI in medieval and Renaissance. Playing online speed also helps restrain what you can achieve through warfare and lets the AI inject a new unit each 2-3 turns, which really helps them.

The only time such a Diety game has cost me a win after the first 100 turns, even when I was willing to do late game war, was against a Persia that expanded to capture his entire continent in a Huge densely packed islands/continents (I have a few mods to make the AI better at conquest) and their swarm of GDR and land units stopped me from interfering with their science victory (I might have panicked since they never sped it up). And I agree, that game was one of the most fun I ever had, since I had to scramble at the end as options began to vanish.

My understanding of vanilla Diety games, though I haven’t played one since starting out in Civ 6 last year, is you need to chop like mad to survive and then catch up to the AI, but if you do, they pretty much fall apart because the vanilla late game bonuses are not really that significant. Do folks find this leads to more peaceful min/max gameplay?

I sort of refuse to chop more than a handful of times in a game, since it would overwhelm no-starting-adv AI, and I and have the most fun when the game goes longer (Zees mods help with this). I enjoy my games having all elements playing out simultaneously and am not that interested in learning how to achieve early victories on vanilla. I won’t claim to be “good” at the game, but I am good enough at having fun with it. I agree with OP that the game is most fun when you find a combo of difficulty and mods that allow the AI to often enough rebuff your attempts at moving in on a victory.

 

[Linklite]

I'm a little lost as to the point of playing on Deity with all their advantages removed. My understanding was the AI was fundamentally the same on higher difficulties m, just that they tip the scales in the AI's favour by giving them freebies?

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

No offense, but I would advise you to be more humble about your self-assessment of being a good player. A good player would have a clear plan for winning a game and would act throughout the game accordingly. Instead of that, you just played a messy game that led to nowhere - not being able to build an early Industrial wonder by T350 is not exactly a sign of playing the game well.

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly agree with your original post, I consider it favorable that Firaxis does not let a player beat the hardest difficulty with such imprecise gameplay (even thought it wasn't even a real Deity game).

You're right - I didn't have a clear plan, because I underestimated the AI and thought I would win anyway (plus, I wanted to play a bit differently for variety and fun instead of building the most optimal wonders and being tight and too serious). On the other hand, I tried to use Ethiopia's abilities to the maximum.

I'm a little lost as to the point of playing on Deity with all their advantages removed. My understanding was the AI was fundamentally the same on higher difficulties m, just that they tip the scales in the AI's favour by giving them freebies?

Even without the extra starting units and some free eureka/civic boosts, the AI on Deity certainly gets powerful bonuses (e.g. a staggering +80% AI Production/Gold Bonus) throughout the game, which makes it harder to play against.

 

[Linklite]

Even without the extra starting units and some free eureka/civic boosts, the AI on Deity certainly gets powerful bonuses (e.g. a staggering +80% AI Production/Gold Bonus) throughout the game, which makes it harder to play against.

Ah I thought your mod removed those too. Fair enough.