Let's Talk Deity (dominant strategies, openings, etc.)

[kb27787]

If it's a culture lux then working the square early or even settling on it can be great just for the culture. Regardless, having a lux early is a no brainier if you can because the ai will swap a relic and gold for it in the ancient era, they treat it as worthless or worth 1 gold. If you spend the time each turn checking you will get a nice early faith generator, if you do not want the tourism, sell it for significant amounts in the medieval era to a low culture player.

As for just swapping it for 5-6 GPT. I am afraid I disagree that is not a lot. It's 2 tile expansions at a time you have little gold, those expansions give you an edge... has no-one noticed a little sentence whacker said in GOTM where he spends spare early gold on tiles. If we are talking efficiency, this is significant.

Seriously they will give a relic for the lux!!!!!???? (gotta try that next time as Kongo)... pretty useful for getting pantheon but don't wanna run god king and want the +1 to all cities instead... (although TBH I'd rather just pillage a shrine/holy site for that 25 faith lol... easier if you somehow find yourself in a war)
It doesn't even have to be tourism I think... with the faith from that relic, you can do a midgame switch to theocracy and the faith from the relic will itself be worth a knight at least.

As for buying tiles... I don't know about that... it assumes you are sure you can last long enough for the extra cogs and food and gold to pay off for your investment. By the time it comes into effect however, I think the game is already pretty much won or lost (around t40-ish... 30 turns after selling lux)

 

[Victoria]

Seriously they will give a relic for the lux!!!!!????

Yesterday Hojo gave me 19 gold, 6 GPT and the beard of the evangelist for a blob of mercury
In the ancient era, you can do this every game

Buying a wooded hill tile just so you warrior can double heal while defending is handy, let alone the extra cog

 

[stinkubus]

Seriously they will give a relic for the lux!!!!!???? (gotta try that next time as Kongo)... pretty useful for getting pantheon but don't wanna run god king and want the +1 to all cities instead... (although TBH I'd rather just pillage a shrine/holy site for that 25 faith lol... easier if you somehow find yourself in a war))

Pillaging plantations, sphinxes, and kurgans will also get you that faith.

 

[JamesCivFan]

Alright, after lots of opinions in this thread, as well as my personal experiences, these are a few of the conclusions I arrived to, after spending quite some time on a plethora of Deity Pangaea games:

1) As lots of people said, opening with a Slinger is probably the safest thing to do, especially if you don't have a coastal start on Pangaea and you are most likely surrounded by aggressive civs. I had one game where I started right next to Rome and Sumeria. Yeah... Scout openers can also pay off big time, but they are still objectively riskier than Slinger openers.
Opening up with a Builder could also be an option if and only if you are sure you are secure enough from Barbarians and Civs. Speaking of Barbarians...

2) In Civ VI, Barbarians are not simply a nuisance, unlike in V. They can be really deadly if left alone. One Horseman barbarian rush, and you can lose pretty much all of your improvements (hence why opening up with a Builder just to get a fast Agoge can still be risky). There have been lots of test games that I did, that I reloaded just because I kept getting Barb-Horseman-rushed near T15-20 and it was impossible to do anything else other than have my Warrior and my first Slinger hang around the capital to wait and see when a Barbarian Scout will show up so they can take it out before it goes back to its camp. Then and only then was I able to clear out the encampment and get the Archery Eureka, the Bronze Working Eureka and the Military Tradition Inspiration.

3) You usually don't need more than 5 Archers to take down a non-wall city, or a wall city with around 25-30 combat strength, as long as you do it early enough (around T40 or even less if you can). Building 10 Archers while your initial army just sits around doing nothing can be fatal, because the AI can get walls up, get an important tech, etc. I had Kongo get Knights on T70 in one game and it was too late. When I played this very same map from the beginning, I caught up to him fast, around T45 and he had no time to reach Knights. Then I won the game in 150 Turns. Not THE best record out there, but still not that bad.

4) If there's no neighbors around you and you're trying to go for a Domination Victory, building 2 Settlers before you hit Early Empire can be acceptable. I have found out that having 3 cities early is far better than just having 2 and waiting for Early Empire to kick in before building the 3rd, 4th or 5th Settler. I may be wrong on this, so please enlighten me about semi-isolated starts where there is no one to fight near you, except for a couple CS.

That's all for now. I might add something I missed later. Thoughts, everyone?

 

[Victoria]

Building 10 Archers while your initial army just sits around doing nothing can be fatal

No-one said they sit around
If you build 5 and go attack someone... what happens if you get horse rushed?
Much more to the point one would suggest the person who quoted 10 is likely to send 2 armies off.

If you can afford 10 you are likely to be safer and more powerful with 10

 

[JamesCivFan]

Maybe it wasn't clear enough, so let me rephrase. If there is no one around to attack, you don't need to spam Archers to get the "magical" number of 10 for no apparent reason. If there is, of course you should split the army in half and send 6 on their way to the nearest capital and keep 4 for the incoming Barbarian rush.

 

[Victoria]

10 is a number quoted by one person, many would say 5-6
There is no magical number, just what suits your style and your situation

 

[EpicWestern]

Thoughts, everyone?

Pretty much agreed with all of it. Also want to point out that 1 and 2 go together somewhat. You can't really use scout info (no nearby enemy) to just not build slingers because at any point a barb camp can pop up and churn out horsemen so you need slingers into archers anyway. But I'm a little tired of arguing about it, as long as you build both slinger/archer and scouts your exact build won't matter that much (though I of course prefer slinger first). As long as you don't go something like monument first which is just an auto-loss vs certain rushes.

Also with archer count, at 8 combat units you get a eureka. I've never really felt the need to build 10 archers, but if you're specifically doing domination/Pangaea you might have enough space to take advantage.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

10 is a number quoted by one person, many would say 5-6
There is no magical number, just what suits your style and your situation

I don't think with 5~6 archers you can fight against Swordman/Horseman Defense with walls, which is the most likely issue at T40~50.

Since your knights come at T65~75, you army have to do sth. between these 20 turns. That's why building 10~15 archers is appropriate. With -1 maintainance policy those archers actually do not cost you any money.

 

[JamesCivFan]

Pretty much agreed with all of it. Also want to point out that 1 and 2 go together somewhat. You can't really use scout info (no nearby enemy) to just not build slingers because at any point a barb camp can pop up and churn out horsemen so you need slingers into archers anyway. But I'm a little tired of arguing about it, as long as you build both slinger/archer and scouts your exact build won't matter that much (though I of course prefer slinger first). As long as you don't go something like monument first which is just an auto-loss vs certain rushes.

Also with archer count, at 8 combat units you get a eureka. I've never really felt the need to build 10 archers, but if you're specifically doing domination/Pangaea you might have enough space to take advantage.

Yeah, I usually stop after I get the Eureka which is at 7 Archers + my initial Warrior. I am playing a game right now as Macedon, and it's not the AI rush that makes the game difficult (I got Warrior/Archer-rushed by Pericles. Oh, the irony). It's the barbarian camps that keep spawning unit after unit after unit and even Deity AIs are helpless against these raging camps.

Not only do they spawn fast, but just now I think I had 2 units spawn at once (maybe the 2nd one was hidden from my view but still). It's insane how much more difficult the game is with barbs. Without them, I think even Deity would be a piece of cake. I don't know if that was intentional but out of all the AI bonuses Deity has, for me, it's the barbs that are the worst, by far.

 

[mckinney156]

Semi necro but I build a scout first in 90% of my deity games. Stealing settlers and builders is relatively rare but I meet a CS or 2 first about half the time if not more. The real benefit to me though is the goodie huts. Typically get at least 3 or 4 of them sometimes you find a ton.

 

[JamesCivFan]

Semi necro but I build a scout first in 90% of my deity games. Stealing settlers and builders is relatively rare but I meet a CS or 2 first about half the time if not more. The real benefit to me though is the goodie huts. Typically get at least 3 or 4 of them sometimes you find a ton.

What do you usually do if a barbarian scout shows up early? You obviously cannot chase it with your Warrior, nor can you kill it in 1 hit. It's bound to see your borders and run back to its camp. Barb scouts show up in pretty much every Deity game I play.

 

[stinkubus]

Scout + Warrior can often corner barb scouts. If you can't chase it down then fortify the warrior on a hill (forest hill even better), let the barbs commit suicide, and enjoy a free eureka for Bronze Working.

 

[Victoria]

What do you usually do if a barbarian scout shows up early?

Celebrate that you will be able to get a eureka for iron working?
Cmon 20 strength horses are not that scary.

A scout has to get to you and back to base and the units spawn and get back to you.
A lot can depend on how much production you have and how visible your city centre is.

 

[JamesCivFan]

Celebrate that you will be able to get a eureka for iron working?
Cmon 20 strength horses are not that scary.

A scout has to get to you and back to base and the units spawn and get back to you.
A lot can depend on how much production you have and how visible your city centre is.

1 of them is not. 1 being produced every single turn and 4 of them coming at your doorstep is definitely scary and hard to deal with if it's on T15 or less.

 

[Spudsie74]

Barbs can be nasty, which is why I open with 2 slingers, unless I'm feeling lucky...then I'll go with slinger & scout. With three combat units (warrior from start), I can wipe out any attacking barbs, and still get some exploring done. The drawback I run into is I often spend more time defending than exploring. I have started keying on barbarian scouts, If I can't kill it, at least chase it all over the map. Barbarians often make really poor decisions (what a surprise), like moving into a cul-de-sac, ect. One neat trick I've learned (from these forums) is to let the CS or AI attack a barb camp, and then move in for the coup de gras.

I don't know if this is the new patch, or altered tactics on my part, but it appears that the barbs are more aggressive, often giving the AI &CS combat units hell. Makes for great scavenging, if you like roadkill.

 

[Victoria]

1 of them is not. 1 being produced every single turn and 4 of them coming at your doorstep is definitely scary and hard to deal with if it's on T15 or less

If you only send your warrior out about 6 tiles and circle your city you will normally catch the T15 camp napping which a single warrior can often deal with. I have been quite surprised how few T15 camps I come across. Also warriors on wooded hills are little honey traps for these poor souls, if I find a T15 camp that's already spawned it's a couple of warriors I will build first.

 

[AnthonyPaulO]

Now if you called that a tip or correction it would sound better, it is not a mistake because I did not know about it.
There may be other tips people could give.

... thanks for the tip , very useful and my life is now much easier.

Haven't been here in a while since I had kids, but just started playing Civ again (Rise and Fall to be precise) and I'm loving it; it's such a beautiful thing isn't it? The graphics keep improving, I can't help but stop and just enjoy the artwork at times. It's a long way from the original Civ... what a difference! Anyway, I was hunting around for what the latest Deity strategies were and came upon this thread which I am very appreciative of, you people really know your business! It' really amazing how you all are so knowledgeable about such minute details that would escape the attention of the rest of us, the 99%. Thank you all for your wonderful threads and for sharing your experience!

@Lily_Lancer : I think you got a raw deal here as I could see you were trying to be helpful, albeit in a direct and blunt manner, and I believe this was misconstrued by a couple of people. You're obviously well-versed in this game, I would love to watch some of your games!

@JamesCivFan : you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar

@Victoria : Tip would probably have sounded better but it is still a mistake as it has no such requirement that you know about the subject in advance; we all make mistakes in our ignorance, and I am well aware of my own ignorance lol! Like Lily Lancer you seem extremely knowledgeable and I enjoyed reading your posts! I really look forward to looking at both of your post history and see if I can find some games that I can follow through and learn from. I am such a damn noob, I'd be lucky if I can win something at Emperor level left to my own devices

Cheers!

Anthony

 

[MarigoldRan]

T100+ Knights are fine, as long as you have a lot of them. Like 20-30 (upgraded from chariots). They can take out a neighboring civ with losses to half the number against Pikes and Late Medieval or Renaissance defenses. Most of my games end once I've assimilated another civ since I know I can win the rest of the way.