Is continets map just luck based stupididty?

[vranasm]

Guardian_PL:

To my knowledge, I didn't give ANY advice whatsoever on how to play on King on this thread.

yeah you just tell OP that he is not ready for Deity and should play on King instead to learn the game better... and you didnt play higher then King yourself (from your words)...

Well surprise...maybe OP already knows how to play on Emperor and get easy win and that's the reason why he tries Imm?

 

[Roxlimn]

vranasm:

Maybe. In any case, that is not advice on how to play on King. Not at all.

It may be that the luck factor on Continents is just that large when you're playing Immortal, and that there is no solution for it. In that case, the only way not to have the luck factor around is to play at another setting, no?

 

[cembandit]

Its called Deity for a reason I guess.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Not sure if it's start luck, but I've won every game I've played (Prince through Immortal) on continents. And I always have my continent taken before the AI on the other continent. At that point I can find an advantage to press over the top AI to win the game (usually a small tech advantage leading to superior units).

Perhaps the problem is speed? If you're not constantly at war or preparing for a war, you're doing it wrong (exceptions: small period at start of game for settling, time between naval exploration and end of last war on your continent, etc.).

Finally! A meaningful to the OP post! (I suggest that mod should cut out all the crappy posts except for biohazard's one).

In my Immortal games that's actually the thing. The higher you are, the more time you have to spend in full-blown war in order to conquer your landmass and acquire so much science/gold/hammers/culture faster, so that you can finish the game in any way you want before the AI monster on the other continent.

My personal gripe about that is that as much 1upt combat is fun it's getting really tedious when you basically have to do that through almost entire game if you want to have a chance with the other landmass. I'd love to build some stuff, and use it in diplomatic negotiations or basically do anything else than warwarwarwarwarwarwarwarwar. It's war all the time (I guess one or two short periods of peace can take place but that slows you down), and after you have whole continent to yourself you're left with clicking end turn over and over again, while the most challenging thing is to move around your workers to build tradeposts or railroads or click on a Policy. Yawn.

And yes, I know, on King or Emperor you don't have to be in permawar which would be great if the AI would offer any challenge there. And me moving playing on lower levels is not the answer because as much as boring being in constant war on Deity is, it's miles better from the feeling that you let the game play by itself on King and below while you watch your favourite TV show. But whatever the difficulty is, it's far from having a proper challenge and that's what my elitist ramble is all about.

 

[vranasm]

vranasm:

Maybe. In any case, that is not advice on how to play on King. Not at all.

It may be that the luck factor on Continents is just that large when you're playing Immortal, and that there is no solution for it. In that case, the only way not to have the luck factor around is to play at another setting, no?

until someone with Imm/Deity experience comes and tells us we all are noobs and should play better and show us we won't know. But to make claims based on King experience is really not the right way.

Actually I really think that this blanket of doom is stupid. The snowball effect of taking land is stupid and not well thought out and it effects both sides...human and AI. On lower diffs you are the snowballing, on the top tier probably some militaristic AI does.
It could be different with all peacemongers or warmongers as it seems that AI are too biased to certain win condition that they don't take measures for surviving and it's showing even on King. And who knows if the phenomenal peace offer bug (I throw at you everything) is not part of the problem.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Guardian_PL:

To my knowledge, I didn't give ANY advice whatsoever on how to play on King on this thread.

stii:

I don't know if it's possible, but I do know that it's possible to consistently win games on Continents at King, even if you get stuck on a no-rivers Forest wasteland with no Maritimes in sight, and every other Continent gets overrun by rampaging AI.

If you can't win when the chips don't fall your way, then you have not truly mastered the game. You are relying on powerful exploits to win when you otherwise shouldn't.

vendur:

First point is to keep up in tech. If they have their continent and you have yours, then you should be keeping up. If they conquered their continent and you were not able to conquer yours, then you should be warring more. Today, horsemen are OP, but even without them, the AI shouldn't be offering enough of a challenge in war to make it past 0AD.

I did not miss the point. You missed mine.

You are not playing at an appropriate difficulty level, if you cannot keep up with Immortal or Deity AI on a purely economic basis, without the crutch of wars or Maritimes. If you can do that, then they shouldn't be up in tech, and once you're even in tech, you will win in war, since the AI's war capabilities are crap.

If the underscored part is not an advice on how to play on King then please explain to me how should I read it.

Seriously, can we just get on topic here please?

 

[Roxlimn]

It's a general point of play for me. If I'm not keeping up in tech, then I'm losing economically. It's harder to win a war where you are technologically inferior, even if the AI has bad wartime AI.

It's not specific to King. I would have the same standard playing on Emperor or Deity. Note that the advice you praised from biohazard says the same thing: stay at tech parity. At this point, you are criticizing me simply because I play on King. Why not call me "loser" while you're at it? You've implied as much.

 

[vendur]

You really need to play on the higher difficulties before you talk about them. The game fundamentally changes at about the immortal level. It's not elitism to say that. It's just a simple fact.

 

[Guardian_PL]

It's a general point of play for me. If I'm not keeping up in tech, then I'm losing economically. It's harder to win a war where you are technologically inferior, even if the AI has bad wartime AI.

It's not specific to King. I would have the same standard playing on Emperor or Deity. Note that the advice you praised from biohazard says the same thing: stay at tech parity. At this point, you are criticizing me simply because I play on King. Why not call me "loser" while you're at it? You've implied as much.

It's not dead yet

I don't criticize you because you play on King. I criticize you because you have no idea what playing on Immortal+ is like, while you're giving advice and finish with sth like "it works for me, it should work for you, if not come down to King and practice some more."

It's not a question of "my d**k is bigger then yours", I assure you. Vide my earlier argument on advising to a Deity player in Civ4 to do an Oracle slingshot to Civil Service because it works well on King. It's exactly same case with you talking about Civ5 and keeping the tech parity on Deity when the other landmass has been consolidated by a monster AI that is in Modern Era while you're about to reach end of Renaissance.

Yes, speed is the thing, but in my experience barring some cheesy Marathon Companion Cavalry rush you'll never be fast enough to keep the tech parity with the AI on the other landmass unless you're lucky (and it's similar luck to building Stonehenge on Deity) and they keep fighting each other instead of one of them steamrolling others by 500AD or earlier. And that's why it's Deity, and where the challenge comes from - because if you'll allow for the same mechanic on your own landmass (like in my last game with Arabia) then you're fighting with Rifles and Canons against Infantry and Artillery (3 range and Indirect fire is a pain in the arse I'm telling you).

There's nothing overly wrong with that, but in my opinion the implementation of Blanket of Doom is basically forcing the player to resolve the game with only one tactic - war. Constant, tedious, neverending war until there's nobody left on your continent. Fail to do that and the other continent will devour you centuries before you'll get all those policies for cultural win or whatever (unless you use the culture-techs-only-so-that-puppets-will-build-only-cultural-buildings tactic or sth similarly imbalanced). And that's my problem with that - because of AI's ineptitude to compete against a human it gets so many broken bonuses that in order to have a chance we are forced to do one type of thing only. I don't like games where there's not much place for decisions and change.

Social Policies are fun, but once you pick them that's it - at least civics in Civ4 were letting you to shape your empire according to your will, in Civ5 it's fire&forget.

But enough of my rambling, has anyone any more advice on how deal with BoD on Deity?

 

[Myllor]

I really don't see a problem with what Roxlimm is saying.

Throw a few games at continents at lower difficulties and try to overcome the same obstacles. if you can on King, or whatever difficulty you choose, you just may pick up a few things that'll help you later on on higher levels.

My first game on a continents was on Immortal and I just established a foothold by buying up a city states loyal devotion and settling as close to them and as far from the enemy monster civ as possible. it angered nobody (Openly), and allowed me to start sailing in troops.

Edited for immortal

Also to note, i settled in an area that the cs had locked off from the continent. And of course my navy controlled the sea. Saw like 2 ships the whole game. -_-

 

[Roxlimn]

Okay then.

I just won an isolated Immortal start on Continents. My advice is the same as biohazard's, and same as it was before. Keep tech parity. Is it valid now?

 

[rune42]

I hate to butt in, but...

It's not specific to King. I would have the same standard playing on Emperor or Deity. Note that the advice you praised from biohazard says the same thing: stay at tech parity. At this point, you are criticizing me simply because I play on King. Why not call me "loser" while you're at it? You've implied as much.

Perhaps the problem is speed? If you're not constantly at war or preparing for a war, you're doing it wrong (exceptions: small period at start of game for settling, time between naval exploration and end of last war on your continent, etc.).

You are not playing at an appropriate difficulty level, if you cannot keep up with Immortal or Deity AI on a purely economic basis, without the crutch of wars or Maritimes. If you can do that, then they shouldn't be up in tech, and once you're even in tech, you will win in war, since the AI's war capabilities are crap.

You're not offering the same advice as biohazard. Infact, you're indirectly criticizing his advice as a "crutch".

 

[Roxlimn]

rune42:

He is keeping tech parity using war. Yes, I think that if he cannot do it otherwise, then he has a skill hole in terms of economic city management, or that Civ 5 simply cannot be played without that luck factor in Immortal+ games.

Either way...

 

[Zenstrive]

Continents? Why don't you just build scouts, hope for a crossbow-morphing from one of them, and unleash it and a few horsemen to your rivals? You got one continent for yourself and another civ will get one continent on the other. Than you can screw him slowly with naval bombardments. Watch out for barbarians though.

 

[HannibalBarka]

and what would be the point of winning every Deity continent game you play? even more so just few weeks after the game was released?
Deity is there to make winning very unpredictible, a matter of luck and skills. Else they should add another level called "Super Deity"
I always play Emp or King, very rarely Immortal and never Deity. I win 80% of my king games no matter what is my start and who I am playing, that % goes down to 50% on Emp and maybe 30% or 20% on immortal. I think I won one single Deity game in my entire Civ life (and that's 20 years ). I don't play Deity because I know I am going to lose and more importatly I am going to play a very unbalanced game (I'll fery likely will be waaaaaaaaaay behind all game, and it's too "weird").
I also never play Prince because of the opposite reasons: it's too easy and I don't like waging wars with tanks against spers, it's just no fun.

 

[delra]

Yeah, let's not fix AI. Instead let's add a level where player is hard-capped at 1 pop and Ai's units are immortal. AI will be finally winning.

 

[Jediron]

Amusing to see people bashing each other, who's right and who's wrong. It's even funnier then playing the game itself. Anyway, don't know if it's my age but i just cannot enjoy CIV 5.
I've been around since CIV 1, Civ 2 is still the "best" for me and CIV 3 i played the most, while CIV 4 just couldn't convince me, i disliked the graphics ; it gave me a cluttered feel of where everything was; it looked messy to me and a little kiddy graphical. Sort of, can't say it properly, my english isn't good enough.

What i do know is that i am fed up with the stupid AI mechanics and after more then 10 years nothing has changed; the AI is just as stupid as back then, the only difference is the game looks prettier and there are some "cosmetic" changes.

Now, you can add all kind of goovy stuff, like city-states or whatever. As long as they can't or won't improve the game (battle) mechanics it will be a huge disappointed to me, and i think alot of others. Dunno about the others, but i am looking for improvements. Not the "improvements" they give us now, but improvements that matter. Improvements that makes the game really challenging.

But no, all we get is more of the same. And to make matters worse; it becomes more obvious with the 1 UPT rule. Player and PC-player both have less units now, making it much more noticable how stupid the AI is in warfare.

The "AI" handicap isn't a handicap at all; it just gives the AI player a unfair advantage, just to disquise the game flaws. While it sound valid, it also "handicaps" the player to deal with it.
WAR seems the answer, on higher difficulty. WAR, since that's the "weakest" part of the AI.
It's weak in diplo too, but that ain't so vissible.

But maybe i am too old for this. Fact is i cannot enjoy the game anymore. Not that i can't win; i can. It's the way to do it, that fails to enjoy me. And then, my friends; it's game over to me.

But it ain't CIV 5 alone. The Latest TW: Empire didn't deliver either. When you are capable to destroy and conquer France within 20 turns with the UP (Holland), the developers have made some serious faults. Things like these, ruin my lust for gaming. Being sold as a "semi-real history" Warfare SIM, these things should not happen.

And no, i am not interested in "Exploits" or other creative ideas to "bypass" the invalid game mechanics. To me, that's not much else then a plain Cheat. And where is the fun in that ?

Sling-shot tactics for example, very creative, but i can't imagine that this was intended to do so.
It's just another example how flawed the game mechancis are. Civ 2 i liked the most, maybe because that's the only one with FUN in it, with those silly advisors.
I laughed my ass of back then. Just like a nuke game of which i can't remember the name of; Great Fun was that. It's another way to mask the AI stupidy, and i like it.

Blanket of Doom showes exactly what i was afraid of, when i first heared of the 1 UPT rule. The map totally covered with Units, as far as the eye can see. What a crap.

 

[Eomer]

Played a couple deit/immortal continent maps, and every game seems to revolve around luck. The worst luck is where you have a garbage AI get raped by one neighbor, then they take over the entire continent. Meanwhile, on your continent, you fight for every scrap of land. The dominant civ on the other continent basically walks through its opponents and the techs through the roof, and builds 100 unit armies. It's freaking ridiculous. The only way you can beat it is if youget lucky and find some terrain chokepoint on their continent you can hold them off anf just let them get slaughtered by ranged attacks. It's dumb. I don't play games for so many hours just to lose/win based on luck. Anyone figured out a different way to crack through the impossible continet that doesn't involve luck?

couldn't you fakeattack on one side (as far away as you can get from the capital) with slow hard to beat units and shortly afterwards launch a fast, hard attack on his capital from the other side?

The AI is always pushing their armies to the nearest enemy, the way to the capital should be an easy one.

 

[Makaz]

To add my 2 pennies...


About AI fixes

I think the way handicap are managed are currently going a bit over the roof. For example... people who likes to smile the most ? How is the AI is getting +75 happiness with twice my number of cities, half my luxuries and twice my pop. I agree the AI needs help to compensate flaws but in some case it is just going over the top.

Same as AI "popping rate" (I won't use build) of new units is just aligned in a linear way with the number of cities they have. Hence they have a continent = blanket of doom incoming. Now that is over the roof again, not because it is too difficult to manage it but because of the boringness of bombing with 3 artilleries and 4 frigates for 100 turns... Makes me feel I don't wanna do it.

I would rather give the AI more tech advance but cap their popping rate of units to make the game feel less tedious and just as challenging.


About the difficulty level

To me there is a clear "difficulty" gap and I will put difficutly into " " on purpose between emperor and immortal. Immortal is where BOD happens and it become difficult to enjoy the game because of that.

Immortal is where the bonuses given to the AI become so stupid that it spoils the game and fun experience. Going down in difficulty level just to steamroll without effort is also not the answer so you are to a point where:

+ emperor is too easy and not challenging
+ immortal is challenging but gets so painfully boring


For the Op and about winning on continents on immortal

I finally managed it myself without cavalry abuse on standard map etc... and here is how I go:

+ You want to aim at 3 cities quickly and must really find ideal placements for them. 1 city will be your science city (lots of food to run specialists) so ideally grassland/food ressources and 2 cities to be production centres.
All 3 cities on rivers or it is economy fail later in game when you need to field an army.
1 production centre HAS to be coastal. Unfortunately, you will almost never find 3 perfect spots but its manageable still if you lack 1 river or need tor rely on lots of farms.

+ You want to build an army of warriros / archers asap that will let you survive the beginning and that you will upgrade as you take over the continent

+ Do not build any more city but keep the conquered one in the limit of your happiness with a priority to luxury / riverlands - always liberate CS


Once you have your continent beeline
astronomy
then dynamite
then electronics

Ally with a local CS on the invasion island to upgrade your units when they land (if you upgrade to artillery then navigate across the world you ll find arties waiting for you as well)

Hopefully your science specialist city with the national college, uni, etc will generate so much science and so many GS that it will give you an edge in tech vs the ennemy meaning your artilleries will be unmatched and be able to defeat the BOD with frigate support easily.

I believe my last game was one of the hardest setting as I was fighting Cho Ko Nu all the way to control my continent and then Bushido during my invasion.



Other strat is:

+ Let the opponent control his continent
+ beeline Atomic bomb
+ blitz his capital to cheese win.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

To add my 2 pennies...
Other strat is:

+ Let the opponent control his continent
+ beeline Atomic bomb
+ blitz his capital to cheese win.

This or you could beeline Fussion and buy a few Giant Death Robots and cheese that way