My tips for Deity/immortals wins

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

I won severaly games at highest difficulty level and I can see some patterns emerging in most of them. I ll share the most reoccurrent ones:

1)Civis: Honor + Warrior code + military tradition. I favor REX and Annexing over remaining polcies.
2)Wonders: Don't bother with early wonder, you won't get them. Later on, I focus only on Forbidden palace and Chitchen Itza.
3)Hook your nearby resources ASAP. Each not needed lux is worth 10GPT! Don't forget to sell the resources when CS give you copies! Sell all horse resources and OB to faraway civs. My global hapiness is always very close to Zero.
4)Build queue: Warior->settler (I can usually buy my first worker by the time I finish the settler(CS+barbs+ruins $$). Honor+city defense makes early barbarians managable. I usually have 3 early cities close together (3-4 tiles is not as bad as it seems since by the time you reach pop 12+ per city, the game outcomes is already decided) and away from AI. and a settler ready to grab iron once IW discovered. I prioritize city placement with hills on first ring (expensiive to buy later on) and don't mind lux 3 tiles away (cheap to buy or get from culture expansion)
5)Tech: get lux enabled tech first -> AH to trade horses->writing for GS -> Beeline MC -> Bulb Steel for LSM. Around turn 85, I usually have 600Gold+3 promoted warriors+GG ready for attack.then beeline astronomy. You want to reach the strongest civ on the other continent ASAP!
6)Battle: start with the closest strongest neibours (unlike civ 4 deity where you keep low profile and away from strong civs at begining @turn 85, you got the advantage with 3 promoted LSM +GG). Take 2-3 of their cities and move to next strongest nearest target. (they will give you the rest in peace negotation) Time is critical.
7)Always keep the weak civs with 2-3 cities. Sell them newly acquired cities you can't keep and you don;t want the strong AI have them back( or heavily happiness taxing). At those high difficulty levels, 2-3 cities are enough for them to keep buying your Xtra resources. U can also use them for Research agreement, even if it means giving them money to meet 250 cost.
8)Economy: Get your gold from lux trades and city sales, your food from maritimes states, and keep city advisors focused on production and buy expensive hill tiles when needed!
9)My building priority: colosseum-market-monument-library.
10)Use the first GG to lead your 3 LSM, the first GS to bulb Steel and all remaining GP are spend on golden ages. You need lods of them to build Courthouses and colosseum. in Civ5, plains are WAY better then grassland!
11)Sell any city you can't annex. You need hapiness resources and building in every new city to keep enlarging your empire.

 

[PibbZ]

Another tips for getting a Deity win is to play Alexander on a tiny great plains map, grab horses > profit. Sounds simple, but unfortunately, it is

 

[Makaz]

Sounds like the only viable way to win but personally I always fail to reach stronger civs on other continents early on as I play on too big maps

And by the time I reach them its game over...

M

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Duel map, play someone like Ghandi. Play nice with him till you're really to crack his skull open.

Now I'm part of the 0.3% who has won at Deity.

Tried the same thing against Elizabeth, she wasn't having any of it and cracked my skull open

 

[Rittmeyer]

not sure about the need to go for LSM (bulbing steel) when you can just wipe everyone out with horseman lead by the honor great general. for the other continent, you should be able to reach knights before you go there.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Strongly disagree about some of your infrastructure choices. Get Writing and Libraries early. Save your Great Scientists to pop late techs. You rake in sufficient cash in a large empire even without GS-fueled Golden Ages. Spare GGs are good for Golden Ages, though.

Very easy to win every time between turns 200 and 250 by beelining to the United Nations if you just want the win. If you want some fun, you can deploy Giant Death Robots between turns 250 and 300. A Science win is a bit more challenging due to the eternal production times and tiny AI production boxes.

Even monster civs can be beaten by Diplomacy if you're quick enough about it.

Puppets are strong. Only annex quality Hammer sites, and even then razing and settling can be superior. Anything that is going to spew out Gold should be TP spammed and puppeted.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

Strongly disagree about some of your infrastructure choices. Get Writing and Libraries early. Save your Great Scientists to pop late techs. You rake in sufficient cash in a large empire even without GS-fueled Golden Ages. Spare GGs are good for Golden Ages, though..

Early on, I use hammer and coins for army + Happiness building. You ll get extra beaker from conquered pop.Much more important then library. I only need 1 lib to bulb Steel, and with my queue order I usually get my GS around finishing Metal casting. So timing is right with 1 library and my decribed tech chain. My GS can get me steel 14 turns earlier (around turn 84). in 14 turns, you can easily hammer a strong civ and weaken another. As I said early on time is really critical. ON high level game, you focus on the short term. I don;t care what my GS will get me later on if I can get NOW more cities and weaker neighbours.

Very easy to win every time between turns 200 and 250 by beelining to the United
Nations if you just want the win. If you want some fun, you can deploy Giant Death Robots between turns 250 and 300. A Science win is a bit more challenging due to the eternal production times and tiny AI production boxes.
Now that comments I made above a

Even monster civs can be beaten by Diplomacy if you're quick enough about it.

I am having fun with all default settings. MY tips are general guidelines not to be applied in every game and in any situation . Your idea might work.
I had this game where a close AI became really big and I still wanted to dominate. First catherine had about 12 cities and tons of army @turn 110. It took me about 10min per turn to figure out how to progress without loosing my promoted units. after several hours, cathy was down to 4 cities. I discovered astronomy and found Bizmark HUGE on the other continent. I was so so tired from cathy that I just quit. I mean, I want to play civ and not Panzer general. All my time/mental resources were focused on the battlefield that I neglected what buildings to make, what tiles to work,what tech to to focus on, what GP to manage.....Anything that made Civ a Civ
This is not a rant. I like the new 1uphex thingy. But 2 much is 2 much

Puppets are strong. Only annex quality Hammer sites, and even then razing and settling can be superior. Anything that is going to spew out Gold should be TP spammed and puppeted.

I like to annex early on cause you have time to finish a courthouse (especially with all GG GAs). You can't force a Puppet to build a happiness building. And thats my main issue. If its hammer low city, you can purcahse the hapiness building while building the courthouse.No way you get huge empire if you don't build all hapiness building in all cities. Plus you can have faster militrary unit on the battlefiled when purchasing units! (Very important). If my happiness can't stand the new city I conquered, sell t imediatly to a weak AI civ and use it as a buffer versus your opponent .
I usually puppet city for very short terms or very late in the game.

 

[Ozle]

Duel map, play someone like Ghandi. Play nice with him till you're really to crack his skull open.

Now I'm part of the 0.3% who has won at Deity.

Tried the same thing against Elizabeth, she wasn't having any of it and cracked my skull open

Alexendar on Duel, build a second city near where the horses are found

Honor and then Great General

Rush out as many horsemen as you can, and swamp him.
You only need to take his capital, so despite the fact he had 5 cities around it, i rushed past them all and took it.

Game over.

I feel cheap

 

[TrailblazingScot]

When Lizzy cracked my skull open, I didn't have a second city...and I was Greece. Even got a hoplite from a warrior - ruins.

For whatever reason, Lizzy threw her 3 cities up and went for me in double quick time.

 

[Infiltrator]

I think something is very wrong with the steam achievements. There can't possibly be just 0.3% of the player base that beat deity. Not how painfully easy it can be depending on how you set the map.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

I think something is very wrong with the steam achievements. There can't possibly be just 0.3% of the player base that beat deity. Not how painfully easy it can be depending on how you set the map.

The majority of people probably don't care about achievements and play to play.

I most certainly don't care about them.

 

[Infiltrator]

I didn't try to say that. Loads of people don't play for the achievements.

What I meant to say was that I would expect a far bigger % of veterans to try and be successful at beating deity.

 

[stii]

This seems a good place to ask this,

If you keep attacking AI civs on deity at osme point do they all decide you are a warmonger and gang up on you? I've beaten up one civ keep his lux cities then sold the rest and I could attack someone else and repeat this but I'm a bit worried the world will then attack me.

Maybe I'm just greedy but the Ai gives you so much for any tiny city I pretty much just took all the money from all of them, and I guess they will have plenty more by the time I can attack someone else.

 

[qyll]

1)Civis: Honor + Warrior code + military tradition. I favor REX and Annexing over remaining polcies.

I just want to highlight this point. Early military tradition is extremely powerful. Once you've got a few horsemen with march and blitz, you'll be unstoppable up until the modern era.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Early on, I use hammer and coins for army + Happiness building. You ll get extra beaker from conquered pop.Much more important then library. I only need 1 lib to bulb Steel, and with my queue order I usually get my GS around finishing Metal casting. So timing is right with 1 library and my decribed tech chain. My GS can get me steel 14 turns earlier (around turn 84). in 14 turns, you can easily hammer a strong civ and weaken another. As I said early on time is really critical. ON high level game, you focus on the short term. I don;t care what my GS will get me later on if I can get NOW more cities and weaker neighbours.

You want to use the first GS to get into Renaissance ASAP for Rationalism. +2 Science per Scientist and +1 Science per TP is just huge, and you can bypass Longswords and go straight to Rifles via Scientific Revolution on the turn you open Gunpowder.

I like to annex early on cause you have time to finish a courthouse (especially with all GG GAs). You can't force a Puppet to build a happiness building.

Annexing kills your horizontal growth. You want to do it strategically. Good production sites with lots of Forests and Hills should be annexed. They will crucify your Gold supply otherwise, and they can build a Courthouse in short order. Commerce sites should always, always, always be puppeted. More cities > the right buildings.

You don't need much of a military if you have a commanding tech lead. A small, advanced force will decimate lesser units, and big militaries cut into your Gold supply.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Question that might be a bid offtopic... Can I sell excess luxury for cash? Because I tried to do it but AI kept offering weird counter offers that didn't make any sense! I would put 1 luxury on the table and ask for what they could give me. And they say nothing... or even better, they offer X amount of of gold per turn for that luxury AND some big X amount of gold in return... It's like giving/taking a loan from a bank... Or even better, once I put a luxury on the table and asked "what would you give me?" and Catherine said "this deal is fine as it is"! Really now?

Before the 5 gold per turn was patched, at least I could sell them luxuries for 5 gold per turn... Now I can't even do that! What's wrong?