[GS] Making the jump from King to Diety

I just finished my first game on Deity, moving up from Emperor. I took Rome, for the early culture, also thinking the roads would help on defense if an AI rushed me. Standard Continents map, standard speed, no modes, only significant gameplay-altering mod was "Real Strategy". Science victory turn 250 without too much sweat.

I got somewhat lucky in my spawn, though - not so much for the surrouding terrain, which was good but not great - it had rivers and mountains (but not too many mountains), and a nice amount of chop, but somewhat short on luxes/strategics. The really lucky part was that no one spawned within 12 tiles of me; the civ that spawned closest (Kongo) sent its 2nd settler away from me, and then got involved in a war in that direction just as its borders and mine started to approach either other (thank you, Mansa Musa!). So I was able to get 4 cities down in the Ancient without any pressure. More luck, I got a relic from a goody hut, pantheon turn 15 (but no Religious Settlements, waah!), so didn't need to run God-King, and had early first meets with 2 cultural City-States, burned through the civics tree and got Political Philosophy on turn 44. Rome!

I opened scout/slinger/settler, but then built only the Govt Plaza, military, and settlers through the rest of the Ancient; just squeaked into a Golden Classical, chopped in the Ancestral Hall, and executed a fairly standard Monumentality/Colonization/Ancestral Hall settler rush to get to 12 cities - again, fortunate that there was a large peninsula geographically inaccessible to anyone else that I was able to expand into without conflict. After that it was a straightforward science run - the "Real Strategy" mod gets rid of the AI science-fixation bug, and as it turned out there were no science-oriented civs in the game, so no one else had so much as a spaceport at game end. Khmer converted 6 of 8 civs, and Kongo went nuts on the culture, but neither was a real threat to win under the circumstances.

Of course, it could've gone differently - if I'd spawned near Hungary, or Zulu, I might've had rough sledding in the Ancient; if I'd spawned near Khmer, I probably wouldn't have been able to establish a religion, and they might've pulled off a Religious Victory. But while the AIs on Deity are 'better', due to their production etc bonuses, they're still not good - they still make lopsided trades, choose lousy settling locations, can't handle their military, etc. Once my empire was well-established, the main difference I noted between Deity and Emperor was that the AIs were better at wonder-building. I missed out on Kilwa by about 10 turns, and that probably was the one thing that could've sped up my victory significantly - after I launched the Expolanet mission it took 16 dreary turns to get through the tech tree to the booster missions, if I'd had the Kilwa I could've cut that time by several turns, as well as saved time on earlier research. It was interesting to try Deity, but I expect I'll drop back to Emperor in the future.

 

I'll hijack this thread since I'm currently working on my first Deity game and I noticed:
* Should I just ignore extra sources of + Great Writer/Artist/Musician points and just buy GWorks off the AI to fill my slots once I have them?
It feels kinda exploit-ey so I thought maybe there's a hidden downside, but... Eh. Paying no more than 300 gold to steal 2 culture per turn off an AI for 150+ more turns of game? That sounds like hell of a deal.

 

No downside that I'm aware of, it's how I fill up my amphitheaters & museums.

 

Right. Kinda crazy, especially as I noticed you could give them even less gold by giving it upfront rather than per-turn.
It's especially strange since trading great works was most likely heavily intended by Firaxis (since Theming takes forever if you'd rely on your own GWs) and they clearly balanced Gold around being far less valuable than other yields (on a 1:1 ratio) especially Culture!

I think my current game might end up being my 1st win on Deity but I don't have much time to play these days... Also I got a very juicy start with Vesuvius, lots of coast and mountains as Australia.

 

I had a win rate of 8 or 9 in 10 at King and that went to maybe 3/4 out of 10 at Emperor and is still the case.

Surviving the early game is easy; trying to expand militarily is bordering on impossible unless you have a great starting location and the right resources in plenty. AI is walled up and pumping out crossbows around 1000BC usually, which makes warfare costly and ineffective till you get bombards (sometimes even until you get flight, which allows your siege to bombard strong cities without getting one-shotted in return).

At least one AI has runaway science by turn 50 or so; if you have a bad start location or haven't conquered rich neighbouring territory you will be behind in science for the entire game.

By far and away the easiest way to win is keep rolling till you get a great starting location; ally with all the AIs; get a diplomacy victory (the AI almost never builds Statue of Liberty). Build a strong economy and use it to give money to AIs during emergencies.

Of course if you get a great starting location you have the liberty of trying for other victory types too.

But basically it comes down to this:

1) Get a good starting location = win the game.
2) Else, lose the game.

 

Lost to Pericles by science victory.
My hatred towards Pericles augments in each game I face him...and I am not furious because I lost, but because, like always, he declared a surprise war against me...even when our relationship was in the green...should've suspected something was going to happen since I tried for friendship on 2 or 3 turns before the surprise war and he rejected it.
Held my own better than I though on deity, reloaded way...way much when settling my very first city, like I spent 2 hours looking for that perfect spot for Constantinople...and it's not like the reloads changed all that much or at all (I was trying for a goodie hut with faith so I could get religious settlements...couldn't get it) because I played Huge Mediterranean Map, and Basil would always start at the same place. In war i didn't reload that much...couldn't even care if I lost some unit a cared somewhat about. But hippodromes help lessen the feel of losing something important when you get heavy cavalry for free.
Strange thing I struggled to reduce the player count for that map, because I never tried before (I remind you I play on a Nintendo Switch), to six players, me included, and it gave 6 open slots for religion so everyone got a religion. How do a make the religion slots match the number of players?...it should've been 3/4 religion slots for 6 players. By late game I was allied with 3 civs...even with Matthias Corvinus after a though war!
In the end I guess geography played well in favour of Pericles with Greece entrenched in the...huh...Greek mountains, since both Matthias and Catherine were at war with him...and by war i mean parading units around. The AI only gets rough against me or against some poor CS!
Bottom line I enjoyed this session even though I lost!

 

Why? Wouldn't it be too boring when you win on Deity?

 

Did you mean "when you win on Emperor"?

The thing is, once you're comfortably ahead, it's no longer much of a competitive game - it's more a sandbox, the AI has no chance of coming from behind. If the AI were actually better on higher difficulty levels, instead of just given a bunch of bonuses and boosts that you eventually overcome and outpace, that would be one thing. But once you've reached the point of grinding out the victory, it doesn't much matter what difficulty level you started on.

 

No, I meant that if you win on Deity then playing Emperor could be boring, because it would be even easier.

 

As someone who's won Deity mostly thanks to a good start and playing an arguably strong civ (Australia), I'd still see the value in playing Emperor/Immortal to relax with a new civ and with less regard for your micromanagement.

 

Right; for me it's not about pushing myself to the limit every time out, I play more to have fun trying all the different flavors of civs. No doubt if I played on one of the lowest settings it'd get boringly easy, but Emperor seems about right for me.

 

Makes sense, thanks!

 

forget all the above. it's about surviving the first turns. build order: slinger, slinger, slinger, warrior, warrior. and fractal map. continents is too easy and too many opponents close by.

walk around with warrior, if denounced by civ, hurry back to capital and sit on best hill, it is all about not getting more than 1 spot for enemy warrior next to your city. if they can only attack with one warrior at a time you have time to build those slingers. after 2 attacks they have to move warrior out of the way for fresh one, gives you time to heal or do one attack yourself with your warrior. so its important to found your capital on a spot that is not easily accessible. sometimes that means a bad city placement.. I often am the first to declare war with only my starting warrior or maybe one slinger also.

build your units, scout to find militaristic CS, make sure you are first to get build units bonus. try to steal worker(s) so you don't have to build them.

last game I had 2 stolen builders improving hill next to capital (terrace farm, nice extra grow and build for Pathacuti), one warrior and one slinger by turn 20. because of CS bonus i could get a slinger out in 12 turns (deity, marathon, huge earth, 18 civs, max city states and level 4 eruptions). beeline asap for archery. use slinger to kill something for the bonus. dont build archers, upgrade slingers, but only get archery if you have 3 at least. that means micromanage advances to get archery one turn after you build 3rd slinger. upgrade all three and go for the attack.

by turn 60 i had my capital and 2 captured cities. only wage war on one civ at the time. once they are gone go for the next closes civ. you should have more warriors and archers in the meantime... and don't forget to pillage...

 

That only makes sense on maraton speed and even there it might be overly defensive. For standard speed it's enough to make a slinger as a 3rd item after scout and maybe monument.

 

yes, it is overly defensive, that is true. but the thing is to convert the defense directly to offense. i dont want to just sit around, but take some cities after any attacking Civ lost its units after the initial wave of attack.
with these archers and warriors i can take settlers and builders too without having to build them myself.
and i like to wage war. never played standard speed, the starting game is the best part of the game, and i want it to last as long as i can.