Is it possible to win a peaceful deity game?

[Evremonde]

On my previous deity games, I've won by domination and warmongering by turn 220 last time. On my current game it is already nearly turn 200 and I have just hit the industrial era and i'm 2 or 3 eras behind every other civ. The only thing I can surmise from this bad progress is that I didnt warmonger this game. I ended up on my own continent with a bunch of city states and therefore it made no sense to go to war early and use scythias unique ability though i did snag Yerevan in a brief war. I'm behind in science even though i've built campuses in almost all of my cities. I have 8 cities and at this stage theres not much point in settling more cities. So my question is can you outwit the AI by not warmongering on deity or do you need all of the AI's extra stuff gained through war to jumpstart your science output? What do you think the best approach is in my situation? I'm thinking of going to war with Persia because their behind the most besides me and then taking the other civs out one at a time if i can even do that.

 

[Brentonator]

One word-spies.

I prefer going peaceful as going full warmonger and managing so many tiny cities isn't fun to me, even if it's optimal. But spies are the great equalizer. If you can get the minus turns promotion as well as the minus turns policy, you can boost 2 techs every 4 turns with the nuclear espionage policy (and ofc disguise promotion with ace driver to steal a lot of great works, quartermaster to boost all your spies, etc). In addition, spies are really the only game mechanic that isn't improved by expanding. Otherwise, your science and gold reach a hard cap once you get all your trade routes and campuses.

It's kind of funny, because I never use any diplo slots early game, but late game I can't get enough of the spy boosting ones.

 

[Jart]

I would like to see someone prove me wrong but I would say it is impossible to win a peaceful (taking no cities, standard maps etc...) science victory on deity. Immortal most likely the same. I am guessing you would have to get at least 10 to 12 cities up before turn 80 and then you would have to hope that no civ runs away. It would have to be a really exceptional map.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

You need map selection.
Also, being declared is also not a "peaceful" victory, you have to avoid that. Once you're declared war, you no longer fulfill the "peaceful" requirement.
So, sure peaceful victory cannot be applied to every no save-load normal games.
But if you select map to make yourself separated, it'll be achievable.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

You need map selection.
Also, being declared is also not a "peaceful" victory, you have to avoid that. Once you're declared war, you no longer fulfill the "peaceful" requirement.
So, sure peaceful victory cannot be applied to every no save-load normal games.
But if you select map to make yourself separated, it'll be achievable.

This doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter if the AI declares war on you, it still qualifies as "peaceful" as long as you didn't declare or keep any cities. Playing "peacefully" just means you can't be the aggressor, it doesn't mean you can't defend yourself.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

This doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter if the AI declares war on you, it still qualifies as "peaceful" as long as you didn't declare or keep any cities. Playing "peacefully" just means you can't be the aggressor, it doesn't mean you can't defend yourself.

Then the strategy of your "peaceful" is just "how to trick the AI so that it'll declare on me"

You can always benefit besides taking cities, such as pillage or grabbing builder/settlers.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Then the strategy of your "peaceful" is just "how to trick the AI so that it'll declare on me"

You can always benefit besides taking cities, such as pillage or grabbing builder/settlers.

Lol... that's not a "peaceful" strategy, that's Australia's strategy If you're role-playing a peaceful civ you just don't want to exploit those things. The whole point is finding a way to win without betraying your ideals. IMHO that doesn't mean that you can't defend yourself, although it probably means accepting peace ASAP and returning any cities you may have captured. This gets even more interesting if you also voluntarily refuse to exploit your over-flow from chops by using relevant policies. I might even allow myself to capture a city or two to secure my borders depending on the map. The point is that I won't go to war in earnest, and no matter how aggressively I expand I won't have nearly as many cities as if I had swept the land-mass as usual. I won't even use war to cripple my opponents or exploit pillaging in this sort of game. It's certainly possible to win this way on Deity, but it's a real challenge. For my part I can do it easily on Emperor, or with difficulty on Immortal. I haven't really tried on Deity, but I'm sure there are people on here who have done it.

 

[civtrader6]

I would like to see someone prove me wrong but I would say it is impossible to win a peaceful (taking no cities, standard maps etc...) science victory on deity. Immortal most likely the same. I am guessing you would have to get at least 10 to 12 cities up before turn 80 and then you would have to hope that no civ runs away. It would have to be a really exceptional map.

Hi @Jart,
actually chinese gurus have done it using a combination of many of techniques - with the new Pericles turning out to have a major advantage. Have a look at the saves from @Rogue-star, including a T155 finish and a T165 with Rome, here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/fastest-peaceful-science-victory.625110/
There are also linked videos although sadly in Chinese only.

One thing is certain - the map needs to be good - doesn't need to be exceptional, but you do need something that will give you advantage (e.g. Mohenjo-daro (housing without water) so that you can pack many cities, or Stockholm (extra GPP) for GPP bonanza wih Germany, or Kumasi (culture from trades) etc.) AND you need to be able to grab enough land.

My personal best time is with Mvemba, below T160, but that was before they increased the settler costs, when Mvemba had 2x GPP bonus and I had Mohenjo-daro close by.

I've tried 3 peaceful deity games recently - and stopped all 3 at around T50ish because AI forward-settled me so much, war became the only option. If you're lucky enough to prevent this - then its doable.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

sadly in Chinese only

I guess you haven't watched that video yet?

I think a good map is not really needed if we don't need to be fast, just win. Actually, most game reports I posted in that thread is random start (means normal map, no selected), no map reviewed or restart. That Germany 170T video was LIVE recorded in 2 days, just after I realized that no proper video to prove that 150~170 peaceful victory (only many game reports in text and images), so Rogue-star helped me. We have a live streaming site and a lot of people have watched this live recording. In other words,this video is, to some extent, specially made for you guys here

In this video you will see he switched to the settler lens very often, to find where are the coastline, are there any other cities around, to determine best location to settle. Poland forward-settled at T14, only 6 tiles distance from Germany capital, and Alexander was also not very far, but still he built 5 cities in the first 50 turns, finally 11 cities. Then you will see several useful city states were defeated very early by AI, include Kumasi and Moenjodaro (T50~70). In the middle game he tried to trade with all AI’s to gain their cash, and carefully check their agendas to make allies, then research agreements. Because of these operations, only Poland declared war on him once during the game, and player’s army even did not cross the border, just defend, and made peace ASAP. Alexander began to build Big-Ben at turn 130, which was really early, so he watched the progress nearly once per turn, and finished it by himself just before Alexander’s last step (turn 157). In the last 10 turns he calculate the prod and science very accurately, to make sure they meet the requirements at the same time. These operations really make the video so long.

Do you really want to know if they select a good map, a good Civ, and save/load allowed, how many turns will be used for a peaceful SV?

in additional, for peaceful play there are other options: culture victory or religion victory. Peaceful CV reports may be more than peaceful SV in Chinese forum, even one-city-challenge: Deity OCC CV in T266, https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5476466977

 

[dunkleosteus]

Of course. Dual size map, religious victory only. Playing against Kongo. You literally can't lose (unless he decs war and kills you). The best part is that once you spread you religion to one of his cities, he'll use any apostles he generates to spread your religion TO HIS OWN CITIES.

 

[Jart]

I have watched the first 50 turns of Rogue Stars Germany. It is a bit of a tough watch for me because he moves the screen a lot and has a bit of a twitchy play style for viewing. The map is nice a lot of river and early exploitable jungle tiles.

This is the first time I have seen anyone use a 3 cultural district opening. Very impressive and risky play. It appears to me that he was trading GPT for bulk gold in the early going, did I see this right? Did this constant trading have a diplo effect? Maybe to some extent it kept Poland at bay early but there sure was a lot of red in her diplo output.

 

[hongyu20]

This was the OCC game @Boyan_Sun was referencing, France on TSL as you can see. According to the description given, due to the fixed starts of the TSL, she chose CIVs that are far away and easy to befriend. She also avoided culture bosses such as China, Kongo or Brazil. Barbarians were turned off to avoid early horsemen.

 

[hongyu20]

in additional, for peaceful play, there are other options: culture victory or religion victory. Peaceful CV reports may be more than peaceful SV in Chinese forum, even one-city-challenge: Deity OCC CV in T266, https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5476466977

I think this deserves its own thread to discuss tbh, what do you think ?