Hello everybody,
I have just won a game with the vox populi mod on deity difficulty and would like to share some impressions and advices.
I played as the Inca, Bering Strait map, Deity, Epic pace. I prefer epic to standard because you spend more time in different eras. Bering Strait because I like maps imitating real landscapes, and this one is full of mountains and forests, ideal for the Inca or Iroquois. The winning game was my fourth trial to succeed in vox populi on deity. I guess it was a lucky combination of the map and the nation which gave me a chance to oppose the infinite bonuses AI gets on this difficulty. For example, I found cities on mountains, my first included. It took me a (lost) game to understand that the starting location of my settler is not the best location for the first city. It was hard to leave the coastal spot between three salt resources (luxury and food in one) but the mountain in inland has a marble next to it and thanks to it I managed to get most ancient and classical wonders – a thing I would not expect on this difficulty. And thanks to Stonehenge (finished on turn 34), I even found a religion, which in all the lost games I never did.
I won the diplomatic victory in turn 572. Policies: progress, statecraft, rationalism, and freedom. Basically, I tried to have technology lead and to get all advantages I could in the World Congress: I found it, decided the world religion, ideology and then I picked city states one by one by “sphere of influence” resolutions. Early in the game, any time I could choose a great person I took a diplomat in order to build an embassy in a city state. I did not lose time with spying on others but rather rigged elections in city states.
The game itself was quite aggressive. The map is divided in half, I started on the part together with Netherland, Songhai, Iroquois and Austria. The beginning was very peaceful, friendship and research agreements with the Iroquois, Australia and Netherland. Then the Austria succumbed to Vikings (from the other side of the strait), I liberated their cities with a hope to get more research agreements from them, but then they declared war on Songhai that completely destroyed them in just a couple of turns. I did not dare to attack again because Songhai had 10 times stronger military than me all the time. Songhai also managed to destroy Iroquois and made Netherland its vassal, so that they practically overtook a half of map. Then they attacked me, just in the time when all my cities were focused on the United Nations, a crucial wonder for the diplomatic victory, so I could not produce units. Thanks to a couple of defensive nukes I survived. In the very end, my rather small empire (10 cities) was surrounded by Songhai and its vassal from all sides.
Concerning victory options, the game was quite balanced. Denmark threatened to achieve cultural victory, but it would take some 50 more turn, I guess. It was also competing with me in building world wonders and the very late ones we divided fifty fifty. The science victory, the easiest one in vanilla, surprisingly, was not any near. And the domination would take ages.
Military strategy for the Inca is straightforward: make use of the unique ability and unique units. Slingers get logistics promotion (fire twice) which they keep when upgraded. I made five of them and kept them alive the whole game. But there were times when seven would be better. In the end they were real killers. Thanks to their unique ability they also obtain promotions more quickly. In most battles I was hopelessly outnumbered, but the terrain is a great ally of the Inca. I deployed ranged units on mountain where they cannot by attacked by melee units, and they simply shot everything from above. Another trick is to move a mounted range unit (and its successors like light tanks) behind the mountain and then move it above, shot and move back. Another trick for the Inca: use the very first warrior as scout. As all Incan units ignore terrain costs when on hills and can cross mountains, your first warrior is your first scout, too. I skipped producing the scout first and focused quickly on the Stonehenge because it was, I think, the only way to found a religion on deity.
Several times I had problems with happiness, especially during wars. I tried to have at least +10 happiness because up to 10 you get economical bonus from it; negative happiness decreases combat strength of the units, so when in war I never ended my turn below zero. I always tried to have my capital as big as possible (27 population in the end, compared to 62 which had the capital of Carthage), however, I built grocer and similar growth-oriented buildings in other cities only if I had higher happiness, like 15–20. Once I tried to build to several of these building in different cities at once, and the decrease of happiness was palpable and quick.
Surprisingly, I was able to have a slight technological lead. I like the fact that AI gets neither free technologies nor free settlers at the beginning. It was fun to compete to keep pace with them and their bonuses; I would say it is greater fun than trying to catch up somebody who has an advantage just so. Technological lead was also crucial in wars when I had smaller but more modern army than the attackers. I think it is very difficult, maybe even impossible to win Civ on deity without tech lead. So I always choose scholasticism as religious belief, and all my universities, public schools and research labs were bought by faith. As a consequence of the technological lead, every single civilization had a spy in my capital, which was very annoying. There is not much I could do about it. At least, I chose mandirs as my religion buildings because they provide protection from killing great people by spies (and the bonus to growth is also good).
I also experienced some bugs and some strange AI behavior:
Strategic resource pillaged bug: My aluminium mines were pillaged during a war. After coming back to peace, I repaired them standardly (not by great person improvement), but I could not use the aluminium for buildings and units, I could only trade it. The bar (above) showed total amount zero but twice 5 aluminium in local resource (green color). When trading, it showed correct amount. Simply, the repairing of pillaged mines did not give back the resource.
AI diplomatic skills and indecisive Dido: Cartage proposed to repeal my sphere of influence over a city-state. Then, it offered me money for voting against that proposal. Strangely, other civs sometimes voted for my sphere of influence regardless it helps me for the diplomatic victory. They also never tried to propose the decolonization, which would greatly harm my position. On the other side, AI successfully deferred my diplomatic victory by conquering city states with my embassies. But it was probably unintentional.
All too transparent William: I played with transparent diplomacy and at a moment I noticed that in the diplomatic overview of the Netherland there is “backstabbed the Inca”. We were never at war, so I thought it was an error. Couple of moves on, Netherland and Songhai attacked me. What has happened? I guess, Songhai proposed Netherland to declare war on me and Netherland took its 10 turn to prepare. During these ten turn it showed their intentions in the diplomatic overview.
Displaced nuke: I finished the Manhattan project first and got a free bomb. Surprisingly, it was placed in a foreign city so that I must rebase it to my city. (Later, I sent it back to the city where it had appeared first, but this time with a nice blast.)
A-bombs obsolete: After researching nuclear missiles I could not buy atomic bombs any more. Not sure, if it is on purpose, but I would have preferred to have more a-bombs than less missiles.
Finally, I would like to thank all people who took part in making CBP and VP. When I look back, the original Civ 5 and Gods & Kings appear to be just beta versions. First the Brave New World is a balanced, well compiled game. And then, with VP, there is a series of changes I really like. It is apparent that they come from people who really played the game lot and who like it. Thank you guys.
I have just won a game with the vox populi mod on deity difficulty and would like to share some impressions and advices.
I played as the Inca, Bering Strait map, Deity, Epic pace. I prefer epic to standard because you spend more time in different eras. Bering Strait because I like maps imitating real landscapes, and this one is full of mountains and forests, ideal for the Inca or Iroquois. The winning game was my fourth trial to succeed in vox populi on deity. I guess it was a lucky combination of the map and the nation which gave me a chance to oppose the infinite bonuses AI gets on this difficulty. For example, I found cities on mountains, my first included. It took me a (lost) game to understand that the starting location of my settler is not the best location for the first city. It was hard to leave the coastal spot between three salt resources (luxury and food in one) but the mountain in inland has a marble next to it and thanks to it I managed to get most ancient and classical wonders – a thing I would not expect on this difficulty. And thanks to Stonehenge (finished on turn 34), I even found a religion, which in all the lost games I never did.
I won the diplomatic victory in turn 572. Policies: progress, statecraft, rationalism, and freedom. Basically, I tried to have technology lead and to get all advantages I could in the World Congress: I found it, decided the world religion, ideology and then I picked city states one by one by “sphere of influence” resolutions. Early in the game, any time I could choose a great person I took a diplomat in order to build an embassy in a city state. I did not lose time with spying on others but rather rigged elections in city states.
The game itself was quite aggressive. The map is divided in half, I started on the part together with Netherland, Songhai, Iroquois and Austria. The beginning was very peaceful, friendship and research agreements with the Iroquois, Australia and Netherland. Then the Austria succumbed to Vikings (from the other side of the strait), I liberated their cities with a hope to get more research agreements from them, but then they declared war on Songhai that completely destroyed them in just a couple of turns. I did not dare to attack again because Songhai had 10 times stronger military than me all the time. Songhai also managed to destroy Iroquois and made Netherland its vassal, so that they practically overtook a half of map. Then they attacked me, just in the time when all my cities were focused on the United Nations, a crucial wonder for the diplomatic victory, so I could not produce units. Thanks to a couple of defensive nukes I survived. In the very end, my rather small empire (10 cities) was surrounded by Songhai and its vassal from all sides.
Concerning victory options, the game was quite balanced. Denmark threatened to achieve cultural victory, but it would take some 50 more turn, I guess. It was also competing with me in building world wonders and the very late ones we divided fifty fifty. The science victory, the easiest one in vanilla, surprisingly, was not any near. And the domination would take ages.
Military strategy for the Inca is straightforward: make use of the unique ability and unique units. Slingers get logistics promotion (fire twice) which they keep when upgraded. I made five of them and kept them alive the whole game. But there were times when seven would be better. In the end they were real killers. Thanks to their unique ability they also obtain promotions more quickly. In most battles I was hopelessly outnumbered, but the terrain is a great ally of the Inca. I deployed ranged units on mountain where they cannot by attacked by melee units, and they simply shot everything from above. Another trick is to move a mounted range unit (and its successors like light tanks) behind the mountain and then move it above, shot and move back. Another trick for the Inca: use the very first warrior as scout. As all Incan units ignore terrain costs when on hills and can cross mountains, your first warrior is your first scout, too. I skipped producing the scout first and focused quickly on the Stonehenge because it was, I think, the only way to found a religion on deity.
Several times I had problems with happiness, especially during wars. I tried to have at least +10 happiness because up to 10 you get economical bonus from it; negative happiness decreases combat strength of the units, so when in war I never ended my turn below zero. I always tried to have my capital as big as possible (27 population in the end, compared to 62 which had the capital of Carthage), however, I built grocer and similar growth-oriented buildings in other cities only if I had higher happiness, like 15–20. Once I tried to build to several of these building in different cities at once, and the decrease of happiness was palpable and quick.
Surprisingly, I was able to have a slight technological lead. I like the fact that AI gets neither free technologies nor free settlers at the beginning. It was fun to compete to keep pace with them and their bonuses; I would say it is greater fun than trying to catch up somebody who has an advantage just so. Technological lead was also crucial in wars when I had smaller but more modern army than the attackers. I think it is very difficult, maybe even impossible to win Civ on deity without tech lead. So I always choose scholasticism as religious belief, and all my universities, public schools and research labs were bought by faith. As a consequence of the technological lead, every single civilization had a spy in my capital, which was very annoying. There is not much I could do about it. At least, I chose mandirs as my religion buildings because they provide protection from killing great people by spies (and the bonus to growth is also good).
I also experienced some bugs and some strange AI behavior:
Strategic resource pillaged bug: My aluminium mines were pillaged during a war. After coming back to peace, I repaired them standardly (not by great person improvement), but I could not use the aluminium for buildings and units, I could only trade it. The bar (above) showed total amount zero but twice 5 aluminium in local resource (green color). When trading, it showed correct amount. Simply, the repairing of pillaged mines did not give back the resource.
AI diplomatic skills and indecisive Dido: Cartage proposed to repeal my sphere of influence over a city-state. Then, it offered me money for voting against that proposal. Strangely, other civs sometimes voted for my sphere of influence regardless it helps me for the diplomatic victory. They also never tried to propose the decolonization, which would greatly harm my position. On the other side, AI successfully deferred my diplomatic victory by conquering city states with my embassies. But it was probably unintentional.
All too transparent William: I played with transparent diplomacy and at a moment I noticed that in the diplomatic overview of the Netherland there is “backstabbed the Inca”. We were never at war, so I thought it was an error. Couple of moves on, Netherland and Songhai attacked me. What has happened? I guess, Songhai proposed Netherland to declare war on me and Netherland took its 10 turn to prepare. During these ten turn it showed their intentions in the diplomatic overview.
Displaced nuke: I finished the Manhattan project first and got a free bomb. Surprisingly, it was placed in a foreign city so that I must rebase it to my city. (Later, I sent it back to the city where it had appeared first, but this time with a nice blast.)
A-bombs obsolete: After researching nuclear missiles I could not buy atomic bombs any more. Not sure, if it is on purpose, but I would have preferred to have more a-bombs than less missiles.
Finally, I would like to thank all people who took part in making CBP and VP. When I look back, the original Civ 5 and Gods & Kings appear to be just beta versions. First the Brave New World is a balanced, well compiled game. And then, with VP, there is a series of changes I really like. It is apparent that they come from people who really played the game lot and who like it. Thank you guys.
