I'm immortal but...

[Timurlang]

...really not divine.
I've tried every trick I know to come out victorious at deity with my usual settings, to no avail.

Basically random civ, small terra map, large ocean, 4 other random civs, aggressive AI, marathon, non-balanced resources, raging barbs.

Does anybody think it is reasonable to win with the above settings?
At immortal I can, even if it's difficult.
But after many dozens of deity defeats I'm developing a distintive grudge against Civ4.

I think the problems are:
1)the raging barbs at deity hamper my initial expansion, while the AI is nearly un-affected. I think I know how to deal with barbs, yet they slow me.
2)initial expantion is obviously highly dependent on other civs, who sometimes are very un-cooperative settling one turn before me on key spots and things like that.
3)Even if I manage to subdue the barbs and set my cities properly, I'm limited by maintenance costs.
4)And I can rush to alphabet, via oracle or not, or get a great spy with the great wall, and for a while I can hope to stay with the others, but ultimately I fall drastically in techs.
5)Of course, I can neglect my military to develop my civ: in that case, just as I'm developing that crucial military tech giving me parity I'm hopelessly invaded.

What do you think?

Ah, yes, I read threads about deity challenges, but do you think you can win with my own settings?
Any suggestion is welcome.

 

[DaveMcW]

1. Raging barbarians and Marathon is a brutal combination. You're just making it harder for yourself.

2. Build/whip settlers faster. Or build with some overlap on your capital, this reduces maintenance too.

3. Get gold/gems/silver/fur whenever you can. If your research drops below 50%, stop building cities.

4. The best deity tech path is Aesthetics -> Literature -> Philosophy -> Education -> Liberalism. Research a couple turns of Alphabet to drive the price down, and trade Aesthetics for it.

5. Build barracks and walls everywhere, they boost your power rating without any upkeep.

 

[oyzar]

1. Barbs is best handled through fogbusting(especially from the AI

2. Block the AI as first priority, otherwise you won't have time to settle many cities...

3. Cities pay for themselves eventually, once the land is gobbled up you won't get more most of the time

4. Bulb / trade / grow your cities, and eventually attack with a tech advantage, either with drafted rifles or with workshop powered(trade for guilds and tech chemistry) cannons/grens.

5. Sometimes you are just screwed, basically try to stay pleased with anyone who have a chance of invading you. Getting above the treshold required for your power to matter requires ALOT of units, building walls and castles won't actually help... If you get decleared in 2000 BC you are . .. .. .. .ed either way...

The open deity pangea game with charlemange could look a bit like your settings...

 

[Gliese 581]

Just build the great wall, problem solved.

 

[Dirk1302]

Agree with Dave except on 2 and 5,

2. i played once with marathon/raging barbs on deity you need a city on a hill preferably and you're lucky if your first worker can get anything done. Ideally worker should work behind the city between the city and the sea.I had a cgIII archer in my hill city with cgII + guerilla I, i just lost it when it got attacked by 6 archers at once, luckily i had another newborn.

The ai is hampered too by the barbs btw Finally i got some some room due to barbs settling down, i scouted around a bit and while doing this i saw the barbs take an ai city. i wasn't even that badly placed but i didn't want to play on deity then, just see what it was like.

5. Power does nothing to avoid a dow unless you reach an unreachable threshold value which generally is higher than the power of the ai itself, diplo is the only way on deity.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

aggAI basically negates any raging barbarians probs. for the AI(combined with the huge anti barb bonus)
aggAI on deity - ugh; would work, but not on marathon. Till 0AD you have... 300-400 turns; with any neighbor searching for a target to declare, it's 300 checks, so even if they're all at pleased, 1 guy with 80-90 war chance(which gets another -10 from aggAI setting) will declare more or less for sure; and good luck keeping up power rating with deity aggAI.

all in all - deity more or less = diplo. And aggAI kinda screws this(combined with the many turns of checking for marathon - again, it's random each turn, with probably a chance under 1%, but due to the sheer amount of turns... you'll fail one check eventually). It's an urban myth that marathon is easier on deity; on immortal, maybe, due to easier rush, but not on deity. Imho, either drop marathon, or aggAI.

p.s. - and I'd say drop aggAI; at least I was never able to adapt properly to another speed, and I think adapting to a more peaceful/harder tech is easier then changing speed.

 

[Dirk1302]

^I don't have to much experience with marathon but what you say sounds reasonable, better go normal speed on deity.

 

[DMOC]

...really not divine.
I've tried every trick I know to come out victorious at deity with my usual settings, to no avail.

Basically random civ, small terra map, large ocean, 4 other random civs, aggressive AI, marathon, non-balanced resources, raging barbs.

Does anybody think it is reasonable to win with the above settings?
At immortal I can, even if it's difficult.
But after many dozens of deity defeats I'm developing a distintive grudge against Civ4.

I think the problems are:
1)the raging barbs at deity hamper my initial expansion, while the AI is nearly un-affected. I think I know how to deal with barbs, yet they slow me.
2)initial expantion is obviously highly dependent on other civs, who sometimes are very un-cooperative settling one turn before me on key spots and things like that.
3)Even if I manage to subdue the barbs and set my cities properly, I'm limited by maintenance costs.
4)And I can rush to alphabet, via oracle or not, or get a great spy with the great wall, and for a while I can hope to stay with the others, but ultimately I fall drastically in techs.
5)Of course, I can neglect my military to develop my civ: in that case, just as I'm developing that crucial military tech giving me parity I'm hopelessly invaded.

What do you think?

Ah, yes, I read threads about deity challenges, but do you think you can win with my own settings?
Any suggestion is welcome.

Post your own deity game here and you will probably be able to win it with the advice of others.

And Raging barbs? Why?