GalleySlave
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2021
- Messages
- 60
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 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.
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