Possible to win at Immortal or Diety without Rifle Rush or warmongering?

[adamsolo]

I win my first Immortal game yesterday (Standard, Pangea) with a Rifle rush.
I followed aimlessgun's strategy http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=393666 and was successful. Great guide by the way, lot's of fun.

Now the question is, is it possible (or has anyone made it) to win at Immortal or Diety without ICS or Rifle rush? Can we beat the AIs with peaceful building? In my Immortal games going peaceful I'm always overrun in tech and soldiers and always capitulate at some point. I don't survive long enough for diplo not to mention have the ability to go for domination.

So has anyone made it at Immortal and Diety going peaceful? Please share your strategies. Only Standard or above and Continents or Pangea maps please. Thanks.

 

[Snapp]

Ive seen reports of no-war diety wins.

I always go to war at some point as I find that part of the game most enjoyable, but I have won immortal just fine without "rushing" anything, just handle your military units better than the AI and you can win at equal tech easily.

 

[stormerne]

Like Snapp, war always seems to come, but it needn't be a classical rush - as long as you attack with overwhelming force and get a quick victory! However, "clearing the decks around you" is often an early stratagem you can't really do without.

But I've not seen a peaceful deity/immortal win myself. I suppose it's possible to contrive one by playing on a huge archipelago map with just one other civ. Kind of takes the interest away though.

 

[elthrasher]

But I've not seen a peaceful deity/immortal win myself. I suppose it's possible to contrive one by playing on a huge archipelago map with just one other civ. Kind of takes the interest away though.

You don't even really need to make it a duel to win that game. You just have to have decent enough land around to get some good cities out, then focus solely on naval might (you will probably get DoW'd, but a good navy will keep you safe) and stockpile gold while waiting for someone to stupidly build the UN. Then you just buy victory. It's a fairly dull game.

 

[orangecape]

I won a game on immortal doing a one city challenge. I won just before turn 500 with culture and never took a city out. I did end up under attack from turn 300 onward though from the runaway civ but entrenched artillery and favourable terrain made that not matter.

I don't know if you count 'defend my city only' as peaceful, but it certainly can be done.

I was greece, attempted a diplo victory but the AIs took out all city states but the one behind my city. I eventually had to swap to cultural but managed it in time. The trick was getting iron from a CS early and having 4 catapults defending the swarms. I had several artillery with every single useful upgrade complete by the time the endgame arrived. There were zero strategic resources within 4 tiles of me, which was rough in the early going. Using excess great generals to create citadels one tile away from rivers is also key since every unit that wants to attack you takes 3 damage automatically and the catapults/artillery can finish them off.

 

[Donaithnen]

I was going to respond about my victories, but then i actually read the post and saw all the caveats you added. So not just no warmongering, but no ICS, no medium or smaller maps and no earth or archipelago maps? If you eliminate half the possible starting conditions and not one but two successful strategies, then yes it's a lot harder =P

(My victories were Immortal on a standard Earth map with ICS and a science win, and Deity on a huge archipelago map for a diplomatic victory with two wars early on just to clear out my continent.)

 

[elthrasher]

I won a game on immortal doing a one city challenge. I won just before turn 500 with culture and never took a city out. I did end up under attack from turn 300 onward though from the runaway civ but entrenched artillery and favourable terrain made that not matter.

Was this standard speed? It seems to me like an immortal-level AI should be able to win well before turn 500 if it isn't particularly pressed, but I guess it got locked into dominion victory and ignored all the other paths.

 

[orangecape]

Was this standard speed? It seems to me like an immortal-level AI should be able to win well before turn 500 if it isn't particularly pressed, but I guess it got locked into dominion victory and ignored all the other paths.

It was on standard speed. I think it was the AI getting locked into 'war mode'. I saw at least 2 spaceship parts but the AI was busy attacking me and I was killing off 2+ units every turn for 200 turns. I think when the AI is actively warring it will continue to produce units instead of spaceship parts. I bet that if I had managed to make peace that the AI would have simply won a science victory (obviously they were in future tech for this entire 200 turns) quickly but being at war prevented that. Unfortunately I couldn't make peace because I had such a tiny military that the AI wouldn't give me any terms whatsoever, even after 200 + units had suicided into my guns.

 

[bryanw1995]

I've found that catapults - trebs - canon are great defensive units but not much in offense, especially post-patch. artillery can be used offensively a bit b/c of their longer range, but unless you get military tradition the others take forever to get promoted up to that +1 range and logistics.

I've only won deity twice, both times on standard/normal/continents. got a bit lucky both times as there was no runaway civ on other continent and I was able to play the civs on my continent against each other. went straight honor path both times, no ics at all.

 

[PScirocco]

Won my first immortal game last night as England (tiny, continent), picked up oligarchy and waged defensive wars against Askia and Oda. I only had two cities for a long time while beelining for longbow, then afterward slowly pushed forward with medieval units.

Immortal Askia is relatively hard to attack if you dont have horsemen (which I didn't), because with a good road network, his UU (city raiding knights?) can easily take back his city and kill the unit inside turn after turn.

Mongol was the runaway civ with his own continent, and consistently two eras ahead of the rest of the world, but he neither waged war across the ocean nor rushed for science victory, so I eventually just got fed up and won it diplomatically because I grew weary of another modern/future era war which the AI has no idea how to fight.