Project proposal: Our community to beat the deity

[Fippy]

Deity is difficult enuf (no mods) that peoples will often reload who play on deity for some time only
I did so early, i know several peoples who did and still do, and imo it's also about stopping this habit until you can really say you are a deity player.
Gotm and sgotm cured me of this, basically. So i back Olafeson, only you will know if you really play on this partly very cruel level.

 

[Olafeson]

@Fippy

usually i only load/reload to see the impact of a civic change. If i am unsure how good a switch from free market to communism would be, for example. Or if free speech is better than bureaucracy at some point. Just to check the beaker and gold rate. Although my really lategame on continent or island maps really needs some improvements. I play very sloppy with tanks/fighters and especially naval units like carriers and submarines. But i guess thats mostly because the game gets really tedious in those long lategame wars.

Also i have to admit, that only after i watched all of Lains YT videos, my skill on deity difficulty level really improved a lot. Also the guide "know your enemy" from this forum was pretty helpful. Nearly watched all of AZ old YT videos too.

So basically i am just a simple disciple of Lain at this point. Maybe one day i will learn how to use corporations efficiently and get better at K-Mod. That are my goals right now. Even after 2500 hours of steam Civ 4 using corporations over communism and workshop/mills still feels like it could improve a lot.

 

[Long try]

anything above normal speed makes the game a lot easier.

Well, my PoV is that any maneuver that makes Deity easier while not cheating is smiled upon. Knowing information like reloading or simply get every AI's internal working in your hand is considered a bit of cheating

There are a lot of very indepth guides on this forum already. Both using statistics from a large samplesize of game, as well as mathematical statistic found in the game files. As well as information directly taken out of the game files.

That kind of guide takes the game a bit too seriously. You folks are like geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci, who enjoyed autopsies to know about everything there is in a human body. Meanwhile, the more uneducated mass enjoys beauty kind of, er, untouched.
I'm not sure what the guide will look like, because there's 1 thing I'm certain: its quality will depend a lot on what you're willing to teach me throughout the game. Maybe it will be on a middle ground between the above extremes.

@Fippy: sure, I've made a promise to myself not to reload at all. BTW, you didn't response to my HoMM appeal

 

[reddishrecue]

Every time I play single player civ 4 bts on Deity I get overpowered by the AI with up to medieval units while I have axemen swordsmen and catapults stack. IF not dominance, they'll take the wonders that I try to build. Not only that but then AI gets pissed off for no reason and start a war with my civ. I don't know who to talk to about this but I've seen in YouTube that people have passed Deity on very long videos, I just don't have time anymore to watch long videos that chew away from my playtime because of school/work. I just want to beat Deity AI so bad though but I fail like I usually do. Deity is beatable though, people have shared and claimed that they have beaten Deity civ either with videos or with a long guide. I guess it requires patience to read through the guide and/or watch the YouTube video of someone defeating the Deity AI.

 

[rah]

I believe it's called learning the game. The margin for error at the level is razor thin.

 

[Pangaea]

Gotm and sgotm cured me of this, basically. So i back Olafeson, only you will know if you really play on this partly very cruel level.

Sometimes did this way back too. I remember especially one low point where I lost a crucial battle early on, and tried to do all kinds of stuff in different sequence to be able for that one dude to win his combat and take the city. The game is much more fun and rewarding if you just play and take whatever happens on the chin. Probably one of the main reasons I play BOTMs tbh. When trying out HoF games I just get too hung up on perfection and if something goes badly (like not being able to Oracle CS in a low-ish difficulty), I just start over. Result typically is that I never get to the end. I've lost count of how many really promising games I had for #1 spots, but never got the end for one reason or another (like those gruesome Sushi marathon games). With BOTM there is more reason to actually complete the games, even if things go tits up.

As for this project, how about just posting a 'shadow'/learning save instead, and get advice from the true Deity players? Admittedly you are more likely to get good advice if playing on 'normal' settings instead of Epic or Marathon. But if e.g. Epic is what you prefer, I'm sure that will work too.

One of the main things with this game, and especially on Deity, is to play the map. It's difficult to offer more general advice in a guide for beating Deity, because everything depends on the situation in each and every map. Land, resources, opponents, diplo, religions, tech situation, and so on. It's kind of like thinking about chess and how the game can develop in millions of ways. It's the same here. There are so many factors, and they will always differ greatly.

Sure, you have core strategies like Libbing towards Cuirs, cottaging the capital (if it has suitable land), and things like that. But these are good moves on all difficulties. If you want to learn more about what it takes to beat Deity, I therefore suggest to post such a game. Then people can help you along and offer advice, and you play short stints and post back images and saves. It's a fantastic way to learn, because others will have ideas you don't have yourself, and if nothing else it will open eyes to different thoughts.

 

[Fippy]

Yup getting hung up on perfection is probably the biggest "trap" we can fall into when playing Civ.
I suspect Seraiel did quit for that reason, i remember him posting about not feeling really well sometimes when playing.

 

[Pangaea]

Wasn't aware we could change usernames here. Is the @Fish Man un(def)eatable?

Speaking of AZ, he's live streaming a IV game on YT as we speak (um..type) edit: currently, it appears he is ottoderping the world with cannons, jans, and grens.

Looked up his channel again and the stream. Won't sit down and watch a video for 8 hours, but... that's what he looks like, huh? I always wondered. Does he still have the creaky chair and cat that walks on his keyboard?

I think both are fantastic players, and we should also keep in mind that AZ did this years and years ago. A pioneer really. Pretty ballsy to put our Deity videos as well, especially back then without the plethora of knowledge gathered since. He taught me much, perhaps particularly on the power of the

Probably doesn't hold up as well, but I also liked to watch Sullla. Some of it was very instructional and he explained things well. Learnt the concept of fogbusting from him for instance.

So much that is taken for granted now comes from code-divers as well, primarily DanF and Manco Capac (who used to go by a different name).

In short...

 

[lymond]

The lady above went by a different name too

Yes, the cat still makes appearances.

 

[reddishrecue]

I just got through watching a 7 hour YouTube video playlist on Deity and the player made the game look like he had the domination victory in his hand and that he had good and full control of the game by conquering a pair of civilizations. That I wonder if I would've been able to do that. Time passed and then it was time for cuirassers. He had cuirassers too and so did everyone else. It looked really cool and that he had control of the game. Next thing you know he gets an enemy civ stack near his capital and the civilization that he was attacking had its cuirasers. The game was over. I was like what? dang good try though. Very entertaining and a good try (even though it failed).