Hello guys, I'm a long time lurker of this forum and I learned many things along the years from various posts. I have climbed my way from Prince to Deity using many things that I learned. Today, I have decided to give something back, so to speak, and share with you my own strategy for Deity play. As far as I can tell it is a pretty unique strategy and thus I call it, un-mysteriously, The Tiberian strategy, but the title of the thread is put to know what to expect.
This is the first time I am writing such a guide so most probably it won't be the best form for such a guide, but I will try my best. Feedback, questions or objections are always welcome and appreciated.
If people find this interesting enough I will share more of my strategies. I apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes. Also, I'll try to keep this concise but it may become a bit long in order to adequately address all the topics that I need. Hopefully it will still be easy to read.
edit: this now has a Video as demonstration of the most basic ideas.
DISCLAIMERS:
1) As the general go-to setting in this guide I will use the HUGE size, Pangaea, 12 civs/24 CS, standard speed settings, default settings. Works on any size/type but the larger the map the better the strat.
2) Not designed to give you necessarily the fastest turn victory time, if that is what you're after. It's meant to give you a fire-proof strategy to dominate the game from start to finish and reliably win any game.
3) If you are an Immortal player wanting to advance to Deity, or you are a Deity player who still struggles to win sometimes, or if you just want to try something new and FUN, then this post is exactly for you!
4) Declaring war on active deals is not considered an exploit because the AI can and will do the same thing to you. I do not advocate the use of any cheats/exploits and that includes playing with map knowledge and map cooking.
5) This is for single player/Deity. Needless to say, multiplayer games are very different.
SUMMARY (what to expect):
The strategy is aimed at giving you an ultra-strong economy based primarily on obtaining tributes in the form of Gold/turn, amounting in pre-Modern to anything from 5-50 and then increasing up to 250+ GPT in later eras. Secondly, you will be making very high amounts of Gold from diplomatic ploys by selling cities that you obtain, either through conquest or bought with gold per turn. A good transaction can give you over 100+ GPT, but in general you should be happy with 50+ GPT transactions nonetheless. Third, you will be able to manipulate the world to your needs, making others fight each other for your benefit.
IMPORTANT: Buying cities is NOT REQUIRED for the strategy to work! It works fine without it, should you have any objections or concerns about that. It's just an option that you have if you want to really CRUSH the DEITY AI and bring the world at your knees via diplomatic madness.
Here's an example of city transaction. Assyria is getting their ass kicked by Attila, and just lost his capital. Now, he's willing to sell me his biggest city and just because I have enough gold per turn I can buy it from him. If I didn't have enough money I could not buy this city from him. So this takes place at peace, not at war. War comes after the city transaction, of course.
And now an example of SELLING a city for profit (note that the picture shows what HE is willing to give me. It is extremely important to never accept any luxury resource as a bonus to any transaction of city. Always accept ONLY Gold/Turn and GOLD and nothing else. Or else you risk the cancellation of the deal because of pillaging of resources.
It works best when you meet civilizations quickly so in theory it's more efficient for Pangaea-type maps compared to Continents but make no mistake, it works on any kind of map.
Following it, in general, you enter Modern Era around turn 175 and you are usually tech leader too.
I will try to separate the strategy in Stages to try to keep things more clear and organized.
Before I get into the specifics of the strategy, I will simply enumerate, oversimplyfied, some core elements of the strategy and then get into more details.
The Core Elements of the strategy. Understanding Tributes. Understanding War.
The core of the strategy is based on the fact that there are 3 types of tribute in this game.
TRIBUTES. There are 3 kinds of tributes in CIV 5. Two are based on the power of your army, and one is based on the power of your economy and to a lesser extent, of your army.
Type 1, and the least common, is the tribute you can obtain via the "Demand" dialogue option. This option usually requires that you have a strong military and it is not the way to reliably obtain tribute from the AI. (Requires: strong Military)
Type 2, is the tribute you can obtain when you are at war with a civ and you dominate that civ militarily, and it is willing to give you stuff to make peace, be it Gold, Gold per Turn, luxuries, or even cities. (Requires: strong Military)
Type 3, and the most important type for the strategy, is tribute that you can obtain when you are at war with a civ and you do not necessarily dominate it militarily, but you dominate economically, and the civ is willing to make peace with you and in the process, give you Gold/Turn.
This type has 2 sub-types.
3.1. - if the rival civ has stronger military than you, it will only give you a maximum of 50% of the GPT that they produce. For example if they produce 100 gold per turn you will only be able to extract 50 and not more, by any means.
You will also not be able to extract anything other than Gold/Turn. The Gold per Turn that you can obtain is in proportion to your GNP and this means that how much Gold/Turn you produce yourself greatly influences the amount of tribute that you will receive.
3.2 - if the rival civ is also dominated militarily by you, but not enough that he is willing to give you cities, you will be able to receive as tribute 100% of the Gold/Turn that they produce at that time.
In the picture below, Greece is the Runaway civ in the game militarily, 450.000+, While I have 200.000+.
He is willing to give me 97 GPT 5 turns after I attacked him. (COLD WAR)
This is a Type 3 tribute. It's critical to understand that if my GNP value wasn't high enough he would not give me gold at all! This is why having such a strong economy is needed in order for the strategy to work! Army alone would not do it.
Now here is the tribute that Pachacuti is willing to give me in the same turn because I have stronger military than him. As you can see it's almost all of his gold. In fact, the only reason he doesn't give me all his GPT is the fact that my GNP isn't high enough. For context, my own GPT because of other deals before this transaction takes place is around 550. As you can see in the picture he wants to also give some iron, horses and aluminium, but he's strong enough that I couldn't get a city out of him as tribute even if I wanted to.
260 gold per turn is better than a city anyway.
Moving on...
This strategy has 4 levels of efficiency based on techs discovered. Aside from this, the tributes will vary in relation to how much gold you can generate through the Trade Posts that you build on useless tiles and work when you make peace. Goes without saying that any Tech that helps you generate Gold is also useful. I just think that these ones far surpass anything that the other ones have to offer. Electricity gives access to Stock Exchange and aluminium, for example. But it's not nearly as powerful as Chemistry or Economics in themselves. They give you stuff just by having them, they don't require that you do something.
Keep in mind that this is just a guideline, and values are estimates. The actual values can be much higher if you manage to maintain a strong economy via other means, such as trade routes, selling luxuries, etc. These values represent what you can expect to be able to extract at the point in the game when you discover these. Also, note that Chemistry can be discovered much earlier, but I think that doing so slows the tech path too much to be worthwhile. Still, it's a key component of the Tribute strategy. Other than that, there are of course many different Social Policies that can be used to increase the amounts of tribute that you can obtain.
Level 1 - Before discovering Guilds - Tributes will be little. (5-10 gpt)
Level 2 - Guilds discovered - Tributes are decent (15-25 gpt)
Level 3 - Economics discovered- Tributes are high (50-100 gpt)
Level 4 - Chemistry discovered- Tributes are very high (50-100+ gpt)
What to do and what to avoid.
1) When you have time with your workers, build Trade Posts on all tiles that you DO NOT intend to work! This will prove very useful later. You will use them during peace-making deals.
2) Never go in a joint war with somebody! It's a mistake that prevents you from obtaining tributes when you need them.
I recommend that you lie that you will go at war and do not keep your promise when the time comes. Declare war by yourself when you want.
3) Do not let other civs get into joint wars against you. It greatly impacts the amount of tribute that you can earn. Instead, prevent this by declaring war against any civ that you suspect it could have reason to make such a move against you. Usually, that is your neighbour, but sometimes it can be a far away civ. For this reason, especially when you don't have a strong military that deters others from attacking you, you need to act pre-emptively and declare war yourself, especially against people who don't like you. Always denounce the HOSTILE civs and if there's no reason to be at peace with them, just declare war, even if it's a cold war.
4) When you are in a golden age, your ability to generate tribute increases by a huge amount. For this reason, a good tactic that can be used is to be careful to have at least 6 TURNS of golden age still available, and declare war on all civilizations (except maybe your friends, but it's unlikely you have any), and do so IN THE SAME TURN. This step is of critical importance. This way, you will be able to make peace with them later, and their tributes will increase greatly because you have such a strong economy during the golden age.
5) When you obtain the tributes, ALWAYS start with the POOREST civilizations. Increase your GNP to the highest value that you can before making the peace and then take the highest amount that you can. (usually the maximum is half).
This way, when you make peace with the richest one, you will have a higher GNP from the deal and you will get much more Gold/Turn from him.
6) When you obtain a city (either through conquest, tribute or because you bought it outright) do the following steps:
-if there are any, be sure to get the Works of Art in your cities.
-sell the most expensive building
-sell the city to the civ who is willing to pay a good amount for it. If that civ is far away, it will give close nothing for it (1-3 gpt). But if the civ is in proximity with the city it will be willing to give high values depending on citizen size and his opinion of you. This will be something like 45-150 gold/turn. It can be critically profitable. If there is nobody willing to give a high amount of gold to you, then you can consider to donate the city to somebody in order to hinder him. (it causes happiness problems, and if he has an ideology and enters -20 happiness and is not Content, you can cause a revolution by this tactic in his empire).
7) Never accept any kind of bribe for you to go to war with somebody. This is a big mistake that limits your ability to generate tributes. Simply declare war by yourself instead. It will allow you to make peace sooner.
8) Before declaring war against somebody, be sure to turn him against others as you see fit by paying him to go to war. If you consider this an exploit, then don't use this tactic. You can also abstain from buying cities outright if that bothers you but in general, I consider that the practice is acceptable and legal, especially considering the ridiculous amounts of cheats that the AI uses against you and the fact that it has bonus production when building Wonders, too, despite that most online guides wrongly say that they don't. The bonus is such that Cristo Redentor, for example, would require something like 937 or 967 (forgot exact value) hammers instead of the normal 1250 hammers.
MOVING ON....TIPS & TRICKS
I will try to describe how a game might look using this strategy and also some general tips to use.
Game begins
Turn 0 - Settling - This guide is not about settling but because you will be going to war early, I have decided to mention that you could/should take into account to settle on a hill if the area seems too exposed. (You WILL declare wars) Settling on a hill loses the Windmill but you will be much more able to repel the attacks that come your way. For huge map size, there is another utility in settling on a hill: the fact that you will be able to build the scouts faster.
Unless you have a reason not to, settle a hill and be willing to lose 1 turn to do so.
Turn 0-20 (Scouting phase, planning expansions and first early wars)
- Aggressive scouting. Analyze your dirt and act accordingly. Regardless of what you will be doing, be it a shrine, Artemis, or Pyramid, or simply going for granary, in all the spare time, just build Scouts aggressively and also use your gold to buy scouts. They pay off 90% of the time. What you do in this phase greatly depends on what ruins you find so there is no absolute "best". Try to not waste money buying tiles but at the same time if there are powerful 3 food tiles and you can't afford scouts, buy the tiles.
- Be brave! If you meet any civilization that is likely to give you problems (Zulu, Greece, America, Attila, etc), declare war upon contact if your units are safe that turn. The best way to tackle a nasty neighbour is a swift declaration of war. Do not waste time over this. Simply declare war but continue your scouting, do not engage in combat unless you can steal workers/settlers. That early in the game he won't really react to your war because he lacks the units to do so.
- try to get a CS target to steal a worker from. If that CS is hostile and has less utility (Mercantile), then take into consideration to be at war with him constantly, to farm workers and for XP on units.
- never build a worker early game, unless you have a very strong reason to do so (you failed to capture one) and always sell all the stuff that you get early (luxuries, horses, embassy)
- if you get an early Culture Ruin, you can consider to pick Liberty and go Full Liberty ASAP and found a religion this way. If not, use your best judgement to decide if it will be Tradition, Liberty or Honor. If you pick Liberty consider also building Pyramids. As a general rule of thumb, never be defeated on a wonder. If you aren't sure you can do it, don't even try. If you pick Honor, you must use it to kill or cripple a neighbour quickly with the second policy. Citadel into his capital, like this. Maybe kill him, maybe just farm him. Your call. (the picture is just to show how to place the citadel, of course it's not that early in the game)
- Never assume Tradition first is always the best. Granted, most of the times, it tends to be. But especially in jungle starts, it isn't. Or if you need Liberty to found your religion.
- look for a possibility to forward settle somebody and threaten to capture his luxuries (via a great general or by buying tiles). for example, in the picture below, I forward settled Brazil and I am sure to steal 2 of his luxuries, that I do not have in my empire, crippling him, while growing stronger myself. My first general crippled China like above, and the second one will found a citadel exactly on the hill, also providing defense from naval attacks.
Turn 20-35: early game stuff: steal workers, get pantheon, do barb quests
- Faith ruin trick: if you can save a ruin or more, reliably, until turn 20, DO SO. After turn 20, there is a chance that a ruin will get you faith and you can easily found a pantheon this way. If you a Shoshone, you have good chances to do this and you have an almost guaranteed pantheon WITHOUT building a shrine.
- Scout trapping: At some point you will be meeting scouts from some other civs in the game, including ones that are far away. If you are close with your units to a scout like this, declare war on that civ and attack the scout, but do not kill him. Try to surround him with units and farm XP off him. You need to obtain your first great general, and you will use it to neutralize one of your neighbours or obtain some sort of advantage. (luxuries, natural wonders, etc) I call this "Scout Trapping" and it is a greatly efficient and reliable way to obtain the first two generals. Of course, this is used only after the race for ancient ruins has ended. Note that it is very useful when the enemy doesn't yet have Optics, otherwise he would escape. I farmed up to my third general from this scout and from another one trapped in my empire. Never drop him below 25 HP because he might suicide into you. Get Survivalism 3 in order to farm efficiently.
- you need to be very active and aware in this phase and that can grealy ease up your game. Get as many quests done for the CS's after they appear. Secure your territory and try to have a compact empire. Try to get some friendships going.
Alternatively, if somebody is doing very bad in the game (maybe because he was attacked by Attila), just declare war on him and see if you can start getting something out of him before he/she dies.
Turn 35-70: possible friendships and the first tributes
- There is a short window of opportunity in this phase where you have some chances to make a friend or two. After the early game this window will close because people will start hating you for all the nasty stuff that you constantly do and the diplomatic penalties will start to not be so irrelevant anymore. If you judge that you can profit from a friendship and enough time has passed since you met, give the civ with whom you desire friendship 5 gold per turn for free and if he denounced anybody, denounce that civ yourself. This will improve relations and make a friendship likely. In the next few turns, be sure to propose that he becomes your friend and if he doesn't want to, prepare to declare war on him. You don't want to lose that 5 gold per turn for nothing.
In this period of time you need to do all the normal stuff. Build your cities (3-4-5). Improve luxuries and resources. Try to get friendships with civs that are far away, the ones you didn't attack to trap their scouts. Be aware of what happens in the game, who is attacking whom and start to manipulate them. Work towards your great general production. Squeeze in a library when it is the time to do so.
-If possible, get loans. If anybody is so unwise as to befriend you, just get as many loans from him as you can. You can get money at the rate of 51 for 2 gold per turn or 204 for 8, or 1020 for 40 gpt. Get all that gold!
Sell your stuff to somebody else, not to your friend. You want him to generate money for you.
- get cash from war: If you can make peace with a civ that you are at war with, and that civ has GOLD, try to exchange some resource with him in exchange for the gold in the process of making peace. You can greatly speed up your game using this gold for many things depending on what you need: buy settlers, libraries, scouts, maybe pay a cultural/faith CS with gold quest to sequre your religion. You will be declaring war again in 10 turns anyway.
- get the first tributes: Some civs that haven't managed to do well in the game are now willing to give you TYPE 3 tribute. Before you make peace and get their gold, be sure to improve your GNP to the highest value that you can.
Sell your excess luxuries. Buy and work markets if possible, if there aren't other priorities for your cash. If you are close to your golden age, wait to be in golden age. If you have a friend, buy Gold/Turn using your Gold, you can do this at a profitable rate of 33 gold for 1 GPT. Make no mistake, it's you who are profiting from this in the long run. You will get your gold back soon enough from him anyway.
If you discovered Guilds don't forget to Set your cities to Wealth production during the peace-making.
This early gold (maybe it's 10, maybe 15, or 20+ GPT (per civ), will help you greatly from now on.
- If there are civs that you know and they aren't your friends, declare war on them. Declare war on everybody that isn't your friend.
- don't be too moral. If/when a friendship is no longer useful to you, and for example you have too much debt to that civ, just declare war on him.
Edited to continue to PART 2
Turn 70 - 180 (the midgame race to Radio)
This part will be more general because what you want to do here depends greatly on your style of play and on the conditions in the game. It also depends on what Civ you are playing. If you are Ottomans, you will be having a big Fleet. If you are Zulu you might want to conquer the world with your strong land units. If you are Babylon maybe you just want to now play Sim City and grow your cities, and win by science.
Anything that you decide to do, always remember that the best way to do it is to declare war on everybody that isn't either giving you tribute or isn't useful to you in any way. Never sign research agreements, never go at war together with anybody and never allow other civilizations to declare war against you.
Turns around 70 usually mark the time when the race to found a religion has ended. Most of your efforts have been geared either into securing a religion, or, if you chose to ignore religion, into getting up your National College and your 2-3-4 cities up. Now comes the middlegame.
In this phase, you can finally concentrate on other priorities that you might have delayed, such as getting more army (if it's needed), dealing with the neighbours, if they are doing well in the game. If you crippled them, they shouldn't be doing too well.
If you haven't met everybody in the game, then this becomes a priority. If there are civs on other continents that you can't meet, and you don't already have a coastal city, you can consider setting up at least one coastal city in order to be able to build a fleet, at some point. You will later need one for Sydney Opera House wonder, anyway.
Nothing out of ordinary takes place here because it's mostly Sim City - grow grow grow, tech tech tech, mixed with some warmongering, to a various extent depending on current political situation.
The easiest and shortest victory type for all practical purposes, and the one I recommend in general if you are new to Deity and you're not sure what to go for is Diplomatic Victory. If you want to try this route, getting to Globalization will help, as will making your religion the World Religion and your ideology the World Ideology. Bring back to life any dead civ that you can. They will vote you as World Leader.
Turn 180-250+ (endgame)
If you were successful at being the first civ to enter Modern Era, the game will now offer you a very high amount of possibilities. Depending on what Ideology you choose the game can develop differently, but you are pretty much sure to win now, only needless mistakes or being Nuked can cost you the game. What matters now the most is to be careful about a small number of things and you'll eventually win the game around turn 300 by Science or even faster with Diplomatic victory. Cultural/Domination are less likely but still of course very doable if you really want to. They tend to take more time.
Things to avoid in Modern Era.
1) Do not let your planes die due to interception. Fighting with planes can make you sloppy. It's easy to lose 325 production instantly with a single click because you didn't care about being intercepted. On sea, don't let your ships fall prey to Submarines. Use a Privateer to capture an Submarine, if possible, so that you don't have to build one yourself. It's much easier to lose units due to negligence after the Modern Era.
2) Avoid unhappiness by planning ahead. You can calculate exactly to see if somebody will give you ideological pressure and by how much. If you had strong culture (especially if you won World Fair), there should not be that much of a problem. If there is a possible problem and if you rely on too many bought luxuries to stay happy, it's best to start dumping all new policies into things that give you Happiness.
3) Do not let anybody close to you obtain nukes - cripple them before they get there, alternatively never be at war with them and be sure to keep them in wars with other civs.
Another option is to just discover Advanced Ballistics and vote to Ban Nukes. (I do not recommend this option, because it requires that you sacrifice a better tech path and a more useful World Congress resolution, but the option exists.)
Moving on to particular things. (huge size, pangaea or continents, standard speed)
FIRST BUILD ORDERS & TECH PATHS
There are many paths to go depending on the starting terrain and resources. For example if you have many Wheat or Deer resources you need to rush the Granary. If you have Desert, Jungle, or Tundra you might want to rush the Shrine. If you have at least 3 forests you can build either Temple of Artemis or try to see if you can build the Pyramids. What you do also depends on te ruins you find and what you discover in the world. (i.e. If you discover a Natural Wonder that gives faith, rush a settlerand go for it and it should secure your religion.)
Scenario 1 : you build Temple of Artemis (a very good wonder). On an average start you can reliably build this wonder on Deity if you have 3 forests in 3-tile range of the city. If there are no forests you cannot reliably build this Wonder.
requirement: You will finish it at maximum turn 31. Can be done later but if you fail beyond this turn, you shouldn't have started it.
Steal a worker from a civilization or from a CS and also or get one from Liberty social policy.
Each time you earn up to 140 gold buy a scout if you have all the tiles you need, if you don't just buy tiles that you need instead.
Tech: Archery > Mining > Animal Husbandry > Pottery > depends on your location > etc
Build: Scout, Scout, Scout* > Temple of Artemis > Granary > Scout > Scout or Settler
*if you can start building Artemis after the second scout, do so. Do not waste any production.
Scenario 2: build Pyramids (arguably the best wonder in civ5). On an average start you can reliably build this wonder on Deity if there are 3 forests in 3-tile range of the city.
requirement: You will finish it at maximum turn 35*. Can be done later but if you fail beyond this turn you shouldn't have started it.
Tech: Mining > Masonry > Pottery > Animal Husbandry > Bronze Working > etc
Build: Scout > Scout > Scout > Scout*> Pyramids > Granary > Scout or Settler
*start building Pyramids as soon as it becomes available.
Scenario 3. (most common) You do not build any early wonder. If you need a shrine to found a religion, build a shrine as soon as it becomes available, and build it while starving, if needed.
Build 6-8 scouts on pangaea type and maximum 4-5 on continents. After this you build infrastructure (granary, library, etc)
On just "standard size" maps, build maximum 4 for pangaea and maximum 3 for continents.
Tech: Pottery > Mining > Animal Husbandry > Bronze Working > Writing > etc
Build: Scout > Scout > Granary if you have resources for it or Shrine if not > Scout > Scout > Scout > Scout > Settler > Settler > Settler > Settler > Library > etc
SOCIAL POLICIES (personal evaluations)
Tradition (best in approx 45% of times)
Tradition is taken usually when you don't build Wonders, and when you don't rely on Liberty to obtain your first Prophet in order to found your religion. It's also good when you have high growth resources and growth potential in the capital. It's also good for extra city strenght if capital city is too exposed and not on a hill. It can be a good option to complete.
Amounts of tribute that you can earn are much higher with Tradition 6 because it greatly increases GNP value. For this reason, Tradition should always be taken and finished even in cases where Liberty is finished first.
Liberty (best in approx 45% of times)
Liberty is taken if you have a harder start (poor start location), and/if you want to get a religion by choosing Prophet from Liberty finisher policy. It's also good for getting early wonders done because it increases worker rate and gives a bonus worker. Liberty can be stronger than Tradition if it is used to have a religion because a civilization with a religion is almost always better than the same civilization without a religion.
Honor (best in approx 5% of times)
Honor is taken if you think that you can use the second policy that gives you a Great General in order to put a citadel in melee range of a neighbouring civilization that can give you problems later (Zulu, for example). I think that Honor is not the way to go most of the times and that the first general should be obtained by going to war.
Piety (best in approx 5% of times)
Piety is almost never the best route to go as the first policy tree. It can be the best secondary social policy tree in a religious strategy. It can be used to generate incredible amounts of extra tribute and income especially if it is taken after finishing either Liberty or Tradition.
It could in theory be useful to civilizations such as Byzantine that need to found a religion or else play without a unique ability or to Maya who have a unique shrine that also gives science.
Beyond that there is little reason to choose Piety only because the alternatives are so strong.
IDEOLOGY
- Freedom is the best Ideology for this strategy if you have 2 bonus social policies.
-Taking Voluntary Army ensures you will also have a strong army and not just a strong economy. You can finally deal with your enemies with adequate forces.
If you don't have 2 bonus policies for Freedom, pick an ideology where you have 2 bonus policies. As a rule of thumb, if you are ever in the position to choose an ideology without 2 bonus policies, this means that you made too many mistakes in the game and need to analyze what went wrong.
TRADE ROUTE USAGE
Tributes that you can earn while you send caravans for gold to other civilization can be much, much higher. However, for important reasons (food and production from them are better most of the times), I do not recommend that you use caravans to generate gold, instead they must be used this way:
1) Always send food to the capital city or to another city in Pre-Industrial Eras, unless you have happiness problems and sending food would be a waste. In that case, send production.
Also send production if you have very important reasons like building a World Wonder (such as Sistine Chapel or Taj Mahal)
2) Send production <anywhere> during World Congress Projects such as World Fair, International Games, or International Space Station. Also send production in the end-game when growth no longer has the same impact (After Atomic Era, usually)
3) It can be worthwhile to send caravans to a city state in order to complete it's quest, if it is an important city state and you really need that influence.
4) If you are about to obtain tributes from very rich civilization and you could extract more gold from them if you had a higher GNP, then it could be advisable to use any caravan that happens to be free to send it somewhere to generate gold. The bonus gold generated this way would be much higher.
WORLD CONGRESS
Try to meet all the civilizations as quickly as you can, this way you have a big chance to get to make a proposal when the Congress is founded.
What to propose?
- if something went wrong and you are too behind scientifically, Scholars in Residence is an option. If the game went well avoid this.This is just a bail-out option for you.
- if you have high enough production or if you can increase your production in the next 30 turns (check demographics to see values), then propose World Fair.
- if your production is very low and can't improve it, propose something that you think it can help you, like banning a resource that you don't have, and your enemy has.
- propose International Games
- propose World Religion (when you can pass it) if you have any of yours, of course.
- propose World Ideology (when you can pass it)
VERY IMPORTANT - PROJECT PRODUCTION OVERFLOW
Bonus Tips to win World Projects such as World Fair
Because of how the game engine calculates production (your production is contributed only after the whole turn has passed, not just yours, but it contributes the production of the AI's exactly after they end their turn this creates a weird situation where despite the fact that you are the first player to act, you will be the last player to contribute production to a World Project. For this reason, what this can mean in some instances, for practical purposes, YOU HAVE A TURN LESS THAN THE AIs to contribute production. However, weirdly enough, you also have a big advantage over them, and that is - they don't use the production overflow to generate extra production for projects, and you will!
Besides building/buying as many production buildings as you can/need, (workshop, factory, windmill, etc) and sending trade routes with production to cities,
Project Production overflow
- create production overflow in all cities by ensuring either that
1) what you are building at that time (can be a production building such as factory), will be finished just in time, in the turn where selecting the World Project becomes available.
2) Build the cheapest building/unit that is available (must be finished in 1 turn), so that it will be finished exactly in the turn where selecting World Project becomes available.
3) In some cases the best way to generate overflow is to SELL your shrines in all your cities and then select to build it again 1 turn before the rush for World Project starts. This way, for example, a city that is generating 100 production, will build the shrine for 40 production, and in the next turn, it will contribute 160 production instead of just 100! Do this in all cities for maximum effect. This will give you a big head-start and help you win.
Bonus tips to win Projects
1) Make sure that all civs with higher production than you (if there are any), are at war with as many other civilizations as you can bribe them to be. You can declare war yourself if you want.
2) Generate unhappiness in civilizations that have higher production, by buying their unique luxuries and/or by gifting/selling them cities that you don't need (from conquest or that you bought yourself) This way, their production will be reduced, allowing you to contribute more!
3) If you have excess Great Generals you can now use one or two to steal some Hills or Manufactories or whatnot from somebody or just to get more territory in newly founded cities, if you have any (see 4)
4) When you see that World Fair is proposed as a resolution or if somebody else proposes it, and if you have a too small production in your empire to win the project race, you need to found a few new cities, so that your production will allow you to win. In 30 turns time, you have enough time to do that. This extra production will be very useful.
5) Be sure to be in a golden age during a World Project construction. You have 30 turns time to prepare to obtain a Great Artist, or to have a normal Golden Age on standby. (if you need 50 more happiness for a Golden Age, just delete excess happiness in order to be able to trigger it just at the right time when you need).
SPY USAGE
Mastering Espionage in civ 5 is not a trivial task. Spies can do incredibly useful things for your civilization. It is a rather complex topic that I would rather address in it's own topic. However, some general tips:
1) know that AI cheats and have different rules for how their spies work, compared to yours. This is more of a game awareness tip. For example, a civ was able to steal a tech and at the same time kill one of my spies, despite having a single spy (Renaissance, non-England). This is impossible to happen by normal rules, to the best of my knowledge. The AI cheats in all aspects of the game, and Espionage is not an exception. I would also assume that their spies are replaced faster, but this is just an educated guess.
2) Initially, you can/should use your spy in order to steal techs. Usually, you should steal from a capital with high population. But do not steal from anybody who is a tech leader, preferably not from England, and also, if you send a spy and notice that the player has 1 turn until he finishes University/National College/Public School, just leave the city and go back to the same city again, because if you remain there, the Spy will not use that potential for his first stealing attempt. You will lose 3 turns, but you will gain more, trust me. For example, my spy reached a city, he was going to steal in 23 turns. I noticed Darius was building National College in 1 turn. I left the city and came back again, and after 3 turns, I was now going to steal from him in 14 turns. So I won 6 turns by doing this trick.
3) If you need to pass a resolution such as World Religion, you can use your spy or spies as diplomats and buy support from people, usually from people who hate you the least. In 30 turns time, a single spy can get support from 4-5 civilizations.
4) Start using Coups if you aren't already. The best way to use coups is when the effect of a failure is not something that would greatly impact your game plans, and when you have no influence in that CS anyway. Always have a pledge to protect in place first, as it increases your influence there and, by consequence, the chance for a successful coup.
5) Rigging is something useful to do when you really need to ensure the ally status of a particularly important City-State that you do not want to lose. Maybe because it is placed in a very strategic position. Having a Spy doing rigging there will make Coup attempts less likely by maintaining a high influence there and by competing versus other spies trying to do rigging there.
ARMY COMPOSITION in pre-Modern eras (land)
The main damage dealers in are ranged units (Archer-type). Have as many as you think you need. Also, try to promote them to Gatling Guns only after they get their bonus range promotion. Other than that, try to have:
1) At least 2 Warrior-line units promoted, one with Shock3 and one with Drill 3, both with the Cover promotions, and then the other useful promotions. This is so that you can fortify certain key positions, should you need to do so. Citadels must be fortified to ensure that they are not easily pillaged. A warrior-type fortified in a citadel with these promotions will never die if he is not in obsolete form, and most of the times he will not die even if he is obsolete. (Pikeman vs Rifleman) In the same way, Scout with Survivalism 2 and fortified will survive a Musketman attack, making early scouts relevant in combat a very long time.
2) At least 2 Cavalry-type units promoted, in the same Shock/Drill fashion (used to capture cities and finish off units, and steal workers, pillage improvements)
3) All promoted scouts that also have Medic 2 promotion can be used in wars to aid units, otherwise then can be kept in garrisons. Any scout with Scouting 3 can be useful for his ability.
4) Having a few promoted siege units is always nice but until Artillery their usefulness is questionable in most situations because of their lesser ability to move and shoot in the same turn and also because of their own vulnerability in that they aren't able to fortify for extra defense if needed. Artillery is great to have but is vulnerable to Bombers in the early Modern Era. For this reason I do not recommend having an army that relies too much on Siege units.
WONDERS TO BUILD
Building wonders is not extremely critical to the Deity gameplay. I would not advise that any strategy be based on always getting a certain wonder. For this reason, the following represents only my general tips about the Wonders from personal experience and should be taken as such. Wonders that are not mentioned are too unlikely to be built or are too weak to be mentioned. If there is a window of opportunity for you, try to build:
- Pyramids/Temple of Artemis (you can't do both) - best wonders in the game, hard difficulty
- Oracle - bonus is strong and helps to finish Liberty or Tradition much faster, average difficulty
- Porcelain Tower - decent and low difficulty
- Big Ben - decent and low difficulty
- Brandenburg Gate - powerful bonus, low difficulty
- Louvre - decent bonus, average difficulty
- Neuschwanstein - great bonus, low difficulty
- Hubble Space Telescope - great bonus, low difficulty
- Eiffel Tower - good for it's deny value, average difficulty
- Cristo Redentor - weak bonus, low difficulty
- Sydney Opera House- great bonus, low difficulty
- CN Tower - great bonus, low difficulty
- Ideology wonders - great bonus - low difficulty
POSSIBLE QUESTIONS:
Q1: How will I survive the early game wars if I declare wars so quickly?
A1: I do not do anything that special and I can do it. So can you. Fortify units in key places, use the power of many scouts and of the 2 early great generals. If you need, take Tradition for strong city attacks. If you really want to be safe the whole game, just take Honor and put a citadel near your capital. Fortify a warrior type in it and it will never die.
Q2. Do I really earn enough gold by declaring war on so many civilizations? Without having almost no army, even?
A2: Well, yes, unless 700 Gold per turn in Industrial era seems a low amount to you.
Q3. Is this a bug or something?
A3. This is most probably a WAI feature. (working as intended). Is it a bug when a civilization far, far away, decides to give me his last city when he doesn't have any army? If no, then Gold Tributes are no bug either.
Well, that's kinda it...
I am sure my guide could have been a little more detailed but I will be sure to answer any questions especially objections to how such a weird strategy can work in a Deity game.
Apologies for any spelling mistakes that may have remained in this guide, I will correct them when I notice them.
Thank you for reading my guide for Deity play and I hope at least one Immortal player crushes Deity using my strategy.
- With respect, Tiberiu
This is the first time I am writing such a guide so most probably it won't be the best form for such a guide, but I will try my best. Feedback, questions or objections are always welcome and appreciated.
If people find this interesting enough I will share more of my strategies. I apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes. Also, I'll try to keep this concise but it may become a bit long in order to adequately address all the topics that I need. Hopefully it will still be easy to read.
edit: this now has a Video as demonstration of the most basic ideas.
DISCLAIMERS:
1) As the general go-to setting in this guide I will use the HUGE size, Pangaea, 12 civs/24 CS, standard speed settings, default settings. Works on any size/type but the larger the map the better the strat.
2) Not designed to give you necessarily the fastest turn victory time, if that is what you're after. It's meant to give you a fire-proof strategy to dominate the game from start to finish and reliably win any game.
3) If you are an Immortal player wanting to advance to Deity, or you are a Deity player who still struggles to win sometimes, or if you just want to try something new and FUN, then this post is exactly for you!
4) Declaring war on active deals is not considered an exploit because the AI can and will do the same thing to you. I do not advocate the use of any cheats/exploits and that includes playing with map knowledge and map cooking.
5) This is for single player/Deity. Needless to say, multiplayer games are very different.
SUMMARY (what to expect):
The strategy is aimed at giving you an ultra-strong economy based primarily on obtaining tributes in the form of Gold/turn, amounting in pre-Modern to anything from 5-50 and then increasing up to 250+ GPT in later eras. Secondly, you will be making very high amounts of Gold from diplomatic ploys by selling cities that you obtain, either through conquest or bought with gold per turn. A good transaction can give you over 100+ GPT, but in general you should be happy with 50+ GPT transactions nonetheless. Third, you will be able to manipulate the world to your needs, making others fight each other for your benefit.
IMPORTANT: Buying cities is NOT REQUIRED for the strategy to work! It works fine without it, should you have any objections or concerns about that. It's just an option that you have if you want to really CRUSH the DEITY AI and bring the world at your knees via diplomatic madness.
Here's an example of city transaction. Assyria is getting their ass kicked by Attila, and just lost his capital. Now, he's willing to sell me his biggest city and just because I have enough gold per turn I can buy it from him. If I didn't have enough money I could not buy this city from him. So this takes place at peace, not at war. War comes after the city transaction, of course.
And now an example of SELLING a city for profit (note that the picture shows what HE is willing to give me. It is extremely important to never accept any luxury resource as a bonus to any transaction of city. Always accept ONLY Gold/Turn and GOLD and nothing else. Or else you risk the cancellation of the deal because of pillaging of resources.
It works best when you meet civilizations quickly so in theory it's more efficient for Pangaea-type maps compared to Continents but make no mistake, it works on any kind of map.
Following it, in general, you enter Modern Era around turn 175 and you are usually tech leader too.
I will try to separate the strategy in Stages to try to keep things more clear and organized.
Before I get into the specifics of the strategy, I will simply enumerate, oversimplyfied, some core elements of the strategy and then get into more details.
The Core Elements of the strategy. Understanding Tributes. Understanding War.
The core of the strategy is based on the fact that there are 3 types of tribute in this game.
TRIBUTES. There are 3 kinds of tributes in CIV 5. Two are based on the power of your army, and one is based on the power of your economy and to a lesser extent, of your army.
Type 1, and the least common, is the tribute you can obtain via the "Demand" dialogue option. This option usually requires that you have a strong military and it is not the way to reliably obtain tribute from the AI. (Requires: strong Military)
Type 2, is the tribute you can obtain when you are at war with a civ and you dominate that civ militarily, and it is willing to give you stuff to make peace, be it Gold, Gold per Turn, luxuries, or even cities. (Requires: strong Military)
Type 3, and the most important type for the strategy, is tribute that you can obtain when you are at war with a civ and you do not necessarily dominate it militarily, but you dominate economically, and the civ is willing to make peace with you and in the process, give you Gold/Turn.
This type has 2 sub-types.
3.1. - if the rival civ has stronger military than you, it will only give you a maximum of 50% of the GPT that they produce. For example if they produce 100 gold per turn you will only be able to extract 50 and not more, by any means.
You will also not be able to extract anything other than Gold/Turn. The Gold per Turn that you can obtain is in proportion to your GNP and this means that how much Gold/Turn you produce yourself greatly influences the amount of tribute that you will receive.
3.2 - if the rival civ is also dominated militarily by you, but not enough that he is willing to give you cities, you will be able to receive as tribute 100% of the Gold/Turn that they produce at that time.
In the picture below, Greece is the Runaway civ in the game militarily, 450.000+, While I have 200.000+.
He is willing to give me 97 GPT 5 turns after I attacked him. (COLD WAR)
This is a Type 3 tribute. It's critical to understand that if my GNP value wasn't high enough he would not give me gold at all! This is why having such a strong economy is needed in order for the strategy to work! Army alone would not do it.
Now here is the tribute that Pachacuti is willing to give me in the same turn because I have stronger military than him. As you can see it's almost all of his gold. In fact, the only reason he doesn't give me all his GPT is the fact that my GNP isn't high enough. For context, my own GPT because of other deals before this transaction takes place is around 550. As you can see in the picture he wants to also give some iron, horses and aluminium, but he's strong enough that I couldn't get a city out of him as tribute even if I wanted to.
260 gold per turn is better than a city anyway.
Moving on...
This strategy has 4 levels of efficiency based on techs discovered. Aside from this, the tributes will vary in relation to how much gold you can generate through the Trade Posts that you build on useless tiles and work when you make peace. Goes without saying that any Tech that helps you generate Gold is also useful. I just think that these ones far surpass anything that the other ones have to offer. Electricity gives access to Stock Exchange and aluminium, for example. But it's not nearly as powerful as Chemistry or Economics in themselves. They give you stuff just by having them, they don't require that you do something.
Keep in mind that this is just a guideline, and values are estimates. The actual values can be much higher if you manage to maintain a strong economy via other means, such as trade routes, selling luxuries, etc. These values represent what you can expect to be able to extract at the point in the game when you discover these. Also, note that Chemistry can be discovered much earlier, but I think that doing so slows the tech path too much to be worthwhile. Still, it's a key component of the Tribute strategy. Other than that, there are of course many different Social Policies that can be used to increase the amounts of tribute that you can obtain.
Level 1 - Before discovering Guilds - Tributes will be little. (5-10 gpt)
Level 2 - Guilds discovered - Tributes are decent (15-25 gpt)
Level 3 - Economics discovered- Tributes are high (50-100 gpt)
Level 4 - Chemistry discovered- Tributes are very high (50-100+ gpt)
What to do and what to avoid.
1) When you have time with your workers, build Trade Posts on all tiles that you DO NOT intend to work! This will prove very useful later. You will use them during peace-making deals.
2) Never go in a joint war with somebody! It's a mistake that prevents you from obtaining tributes when you need them.
I recommend that you lie that you will go at war and do not keep your promise when the time comes. Declare war by yourself when you want.
3) Do not let other civs get into joint wars against you. It greatly impacts the amount of tribute that you can earn. Instead, prevent this by declaring war against any civ that you suspect it could have reason to make such a move against you. Usually, that is your neighbour, but sometimes it can be a far away civ. For this reason, especially when you don't have a strong military that deters others from attacking you, you need to act pre-emptively and declare war yourself, especially against people who don't like you. Always denounce the HOSTILE civs and if there's no reason to be at peace with them, just declare war, even if it's a cold war.
4) When you are in a golden age, your ability to generate tribute increases by a huge amount. For this reason, a good tactic that can be used is to be careful to have at least 6 TURNS of golden age still available, and declare war on all civilizations (except maybe your friends, but it's unlikely you have any), and do so IN THE SAME TURN. This step is of critical importance. This way, you will be able to make peace with them later, and their tributes will increase greatly because you have such a strong economy during the golden age.
5) When you obtain the tributes, ALWAYS start with the POOREST civilizations. Increase your GNP to the highest value that you can before making the peace and then take the highest amount that you can. (usually the maximum is half).
This way, when you make peace with the richest one, you will have a higher GNP from the deal and you will get much more Gold/Turn from him.
6) When you obtain a city (either through conquest, tribute or because you bought it outright) do the following steps:
-if there are any, be sure to get the Works of Art in your cities.
-sell the most expensive building
-sell the city to the civ who is willing to pay a good amount for it. If that civ is far away, it will give close nothing for it (1-3 gpt). But if the civ is in proximity with the city it will be willing to give high values depending on citizen size and his opinion of you. This will be something like 45-150 gold/turn. It can be critically profitable. If there is nobody willing to give a high amount of gold to you, then you can consider to donate the city to somebody in order to hinder him. (it causes happiness problems, and if he has an ideology and enters -20 happiness and is not Content, you can cause a revolution by this tactic in his empire).
7) Never accept any kind of bribe for you to go to war with somebody. This is a big mistake that limits your ability to generate tributes. Simply declare war by yourself instead. It will allow you to make peace sooner.
8) Before declaring war against somebody, be sure to turn him against others as you see fit by paying him to go to war. If you consider this an exploit, then don't use this tactic. You can also abstain from buying cities outright if that bothers you but in general, I consider that the practice is acceptable and legal, especially considering the ridiculous amounts of cheats that the AI uses against you and the fact that it has bonus production when building Wonders, too, despite that most online guides wrongly say that they don't. The bonus is such that Cristo Redentor, for example, would require something like 937 or 967 (forgot exact value) hammers instead of the normal 1250 hammers.
MOVING ON....TIPS & TRICKS
I will try to describe how a game might look using this strategy and also some general tips to use.
Game begins
Turn 0 - Settling - This guide is not about settling but because you will be going to war early, I have decided to mention that you could/should take into account to settle on a hill if the area seems too exposed. (You WILL declare wars) Settling on a hill loses the Windmill but you will be much more able to repel the attacks that come your way. For huge map size, there is another utility in settling on a hill: the fact that you will be able to build the scouts faster.
Unless you have a reason not to, settle a hill and be willing to lose 1 turn to do so.
Turn 0-20 (Scouting phase, planning expansions and first early wars)
- Aggressive scouting. Analyze your dirt and act accordingly. Regardless of what you will be doing, be it a shrine, Artemis, or Pyramid, or simply going for granary, in all the spare time, just build Scouts aggressively and also use your gold to buy scouts. They pay off 90% of the time. What you do in this phase greatly depends on what ruins you find so there is no absolute "best". Try to not waste money buying tiles but at the same time if there are powerful 3 food tiles and you can't afford scouts, buy the tiles.
- Be brave! If you meet any civilization that is likely to give you problems (Zulu, Greece, America, Attila, etc), declare war upon contact if your units are safe that turn. The best way to tackle a nasty neighbour is a swift declaration of war. Do not waste time over this. Simply declare war but continue your scouting, do not engage in combat unless you can steal workers/settlers. That early in the game he won't really react to your war because he lacks the units to do so.
- try to get a CS target to steal a worker from. If that CS is hostile and has less utility (Mercantile), then take into consideration to be at war with him constantly, to farm workers and for XP on units.
- never build a worker early game, unless you have a very strong reason to do so (you failed to capture one) and always sell all the stuff that you get early (luxuries, horses, embassy)
- if you get an early Culture Ruin, you can consider to pick Liberty and go Full Liberty ASAP and found a religion this way. If not, use your best judgement to decide if it will be Tradition, Liberty or Honor. If you pick Liberty consider also building Pyramids. As a general rule of thumb, never be defeated on a wonder. If you aren't sure you can do it, don't even try. If you pick Honor, you must use it to kill or cripple a neighbour quickly with the second policy. Citadel into his capital, like this. Maybe kill him, maybe just farm him. Your call. (the picture is just to show how to place the citadel, of course it's not that early in the game)
- Never assume Tradition first is always the best. Granted, most of the times, it tends to be. But especially in jungle starts, it isn't. Or if you need Liberty to found your religion.
- look for a possibility to forward settle somebody and threaten to capture his luxuries (via a great general or by buying tiles). for example, in the picture below, I forward settled Brazil and I am sure to steal 2 of his luxuries, that I do not have in my empire, crippling him, while growing stronger myself. My first general crippled China like above, and the second one will found a citadel exactly on the hill, also providing defense from naval attacks.
Turn 20-35: early game stuff: steal workers, get pantheon, do barb quests
- Faith ruin trick: if you can save a ruin or more, reliably, until turn 20, DO SO. After turn 20, there is a chance that a ruin will get you faith and you can easily found a pantheon this way. If you a Shoshone, you have good chances to do this and you have an almost guaranteed pantheon WITHOUT building a shrine.
- Scout trapping: At some point you will be meeting scouts from some other civs in the game, including ones that are far away. If you are close with your units to a scout like this, declare war on that civ and attack the scout, but do not kill him. Try to surround him with units and farm XP off him. You need to obtain your first great general, and you will use it to neutralize one of your neighbours or obtain some sort of advantage. (luxuries, natural wonders, etc) I call this "Scout Trapping" and it is a greatly efficient and reliable way to obtain the first two generals. Of course, this is used only after the race for ancient ruins has ended. Note that it is very useful when the enemy doesn't yet have Optics, otherwise he would escape. I farmed up to my third general from this scout and from another one trapped in my empire. Never drop him below 25 HP because he might suicide into you. Get Survivalism 3 in order to farm efficiently.
- you need to be very active and aware in this phase and that can grealy ease up your game. Get as many quests done for the CS's after they appear. Secure your territory and try to have a compact empire. Try to get some friendships going.
Alternatively, if somebody is doing very bad in the game (maybe because he was attacked by Attila), just declare war on him and see if you can start getting something out of him before he/she dies.
Turn 35-70: possible friendships and the first tributes
- There is a short window of opportunity in this phase where you have some chances to make a friend or two. After the early game this window will close because people will start hating you for all the nasty stuff that you constantly do and the diplomatic penalties will start to not be so irrelevant anymore. If you judge that you can profit from a friendship and enough time has passed since you met, give the civ with whom you desire friendship 5 gold per turn for free and if he denounced anybody, denounce that civ yourself. This will improve relations and make a friendship likely. In the next few turns, be sure to propose that he becomes your friend and if he doesn't want to, prepare to declare war on him. You don't want to lose that 5 gold per turn for nothing.
In this period of time you need to do all the normal stuff. Build your cities (3-4-5). Improve luxuries and resources. Try to get friendships with civs that are far away, the ones you didn't attack to trap their scouts. Be aware of what happens in the game, who is attacking whom and start to manipulate them. Work towards your great general production. Squeeze in a library when it is the time to do so.
-If possible, get loans. If anybody is so unwise as to befriend you, just get as many loans from him as you can. You can get money at the rate of 51 for 2 gold per turn or 204 for 8, or 1020 for 40 gpt. Get all that gold!
Sell your stuff to somebody else, not to your friend. You want him to generate money for you.
- get cash from war: If you can make peace with a civ that you are at war with, and that civ has GOLD, try to exchange some resource with him in exchange for the gold in the process of making peace. You can greatly speed up your game using this gold for many things depending on what you need: buy settlers, libraries, scouts, maybe pay a cultural/faith CS with gold quest to sequre your religion. You will be declaring war again in 10 turns anyway.
- get the first tributes: Some civs that haven't managed to do well in the game are now willing to give you TYPE 3 tribute. Before you make peace and get their gold, be sure to improve your GNP to the highest value that you can.
Sell your excess luxuries. Buy and work markets if possible, if there aren't other priorities for your cash. If you are close to your golden age, wait to be in golden age. If you have a friend, buy Gold/Turn using your Gold, you can do this at a profitable rate of 33 gold for 1 GPT. Make no mistake, it's you who are profiting from this in the long run. You will get your gold back soon enough from him anyway.
If you discovered Guilds don't forget to Set your cities to Wealth production during the peace-making.
This early gold (maybe it's 10, maybe 15, or 20+ GPT (per civ), will help you greatly from now on.
- If there are civs that you know and they aren't your friends, declare war on them. Declare war on everybody that isn't your friend.
- don't be too moral. If/when a friendship is no longer useful to you, and for example you have too much debt to that civ, just declare war on him.
Edited to continue to PART 2
Turn 70 - 180 (the midgame race to Radio)
This part will be more general because what you want to do here depends greatly on your style of play and on the conditions in the game. It also depends on what Civ you are playing. If you are Ottomans, you will be having a big Fleet. If you are Zulu you might want to conquer the world with your strong land units. If you are Babylon maybe you just want to now play Sim City and grow your cities, and win by science.
Anything that you decide to do, always remember that the best way to do it is to declare war on everybody that isn't either giving you tribute or isn't useful to you in any way. Never sign research agreements, never go at war together with anybody and never allow other civilizations to declare war against you.
Turns around 70 usually mark the time when the race to found a religion has ended. Most of your efforts have been geared either into securing a religion, or, if you chose to ignore religion, into getting up your National College and your 2-3-4 cities up. Now comes the middlegame.
In this phase, you can finally concentrate on other priorities that you might have delayed, such as getting more army (if it's needed), dealing with the neighbours, if they are doing well in the game. If you crippled them, they shouldn't be doing too well.
If you haven't met everybody in the game, then this becomes a priority. If there are civs on other continents that you can't meet, and you don't already have a coastal city, you can consider setting up at least one coastal city in order to be able to build a fleet, at some point. You will later need one for Sydney Opera House wonder, anyway.
Nothing out of ordinary takes place here because it's mostly Sim City - grow grow grow, tech tech tech, mixed with some warmongering, to a various extent depending on current political situation.
The easiest and shortest victory type for all practical purposes, and the one I recommend in general if you are new to Deity and you're not sure what to go for is Diplomatic Victory. If you want to try this route, getting to Globalization will help, as will making your religion the World Religion and your ideology the World Ideology. Bring back to life any dead civ that you can. They will vote you as World Leader.
Turn 180-250+ (endgame)
If you were successful at being the first civ to enter Modern Era, the game will now offer you a very high amount of possibilities. Depending on what Ideology you choose the game can develop differently, but you are pretty much sure to win now, only needless mistakes or being Nuked can cost you the game. What matters now the most is to be careful about a small number of things and you'll eventually win the game around turn 300 by Science or even faster with Diplomatic victory. Cultural/Domination are less likely but still of course very doable if you really want to. They tend to take more time.
Things to avoid in Modern Era.
1) Do not let your planes die due to interception. Fighting with planes can make you sloppy. It's easy to lose 325 production instantly with a single click because you didn't care about being intercepted. On sea, don't let your ships fall prey to Submarines. Use a Privateer to capture an Submarine, if possible, so that you don't have to build one yourself. It's much easier to lose units due to negligence after the Modern Era.
2) Avoid unhappiness by planning ahead. You can calculate exactly to see if somebody will give you ideological pressure and by how much. If you had strong culture (especially if you won World Fair), there should not be that much of a problem. If there is a possible problem and if you rely on too many bought luxuries to stay happy, it's best to start dumping all new policies into things that give you Happiness.
3) Do not let anybody close to you obtain nukes - cripple them before they get there, alternatively never be at war with them and be sure to keep them in wars with other civs.
Another option is to just discover Advanced Ballistics and vote to Ban Nukes. (I do not recommend this option, because it requires that you sacrifice a better tech path and a more useful World Congress resolution, but the option exists.)
Moving on to particular things. (huge size, pangaea or continents, standard speed)
FIRST BUILD ORDERS & TECH PATHS
There are many paths to go depending on the starting terrain and resources. For example if you have many Wheat or Deer resources you need to rush the Granary. If you have Desert, Jungle, or Tundra you might want to rush the Shrine. If you have at least 3 forests you can build either Temple of Artemis or try to see if you can build the Pyramids. What you do also depends on te ruins you find and what you discover in the world. (i.e. If you discover a Natural Wonder that gives faith, rush a settlerand go for it and it should secure your religion.)
Scenario 1 : you build Temple of Artemis (a very good wonder). On an average start you can reliably build this wonder on Deity if you have 3 forests in 3-tile range of the city. If there are no forests you cannot reliably build this Wonder.
requirement: You will finish it at maximum turn 31. Can be done later but if you fail beyond this turn, you shouldn't have started it.
Steal a worker from a civilization or from a CS and also or get one from Liberty social policy.
Each time you earn up to 140 gold buy a scout if you have all the tiles you need, if you don't just buy tiles that you need instead.
Tech: Archery > Mining > Animal Husbandry > Pottery > depends on your location > etc
Build: Scout, Scout, Scout* > Temple of Artemis > Granary > Scout > Scout or Settler
*if you can start building Artemis after the second scout, do so. Do not waste any production.
Scenario 2: build Pyramids (arguably the best wonder in civ5). On an average start you can reliably build this wonder on Deity if there are 3 forests in 3-tile range of the city.
requirement: You will finish it at maximum turn 35*. Can be done later but if you fail beyond this turn you shouldn't have started it.
Tech: Mining > Masonry > Pottery > Animal Husbandry > Bronze Working > etc
Build: Scout > Scout > Scout > Scout*> Pyramids > Granary > Scout or Settler
*start building Pyramids as soon as it becomes available.
Scenario 3. (most common) You do not build any early wonder. If you need a shrine to found a religion, build a shrine as soon as it becomes available, and build it while starving, if needed.
Build 6-8 scouts on pangaea type and maximum 4-5 on continents. After this you build infrastructure (granary, library, etc)
On just "standard size" maps, build maximum 4 for pangaea and maximum 3 for continents.
Tech: Pottery > Mining > Animal Husbandry > Bronze Working > Writing > etc
Build: Scout > Scout > Granary if you have resources for it or Shrine if not > Scout > Scout > Scout > Scout > Settler > Settler > Settler > Settler > Library > etc
SOCIAL POLICIES (personal evaluations)
Tradition (best in approx 45% of times)
Tradition is taken usually when you don't build Wonders, and when you don't rely on Liberty to obtain your first Prophet in order to found your religion. It's also good when you have high growth resources and growth potential in the capital. It's also good for extra city strenght if capital city is too exposed and not on a hill. It can be a good option to complete.
Amounts of tribute that you can earn are much higher with Tradition 6 because it greatly increases GNP value. For this reason, Tradition should always be taken and finished even in cases where Liberty is finished first.
Liberty (best in approx 45% of times)
Liberty is taken if you have a harder start (poor start location), and/if you want to get a religion by choosing Prophet from Liberty finisher policy. It's also good for getting early wonders done because it increases worker rate and gives a bonus worker. Liberty can be stronger than Tradition if it is used to have a religion because a civilization with a religion is almost always better than the same civilization without a religion.
Honor (best in approx 5% of times)
Honor is taken if you think that you can use the second policy that gives you a Great General in order to put a citadel in melee range of a neighbouring civilization that can give you problems later (Zulu, for example). I think that Honor is not the way to go most of the times and that the first general should be obtained by going to war.
Piety (best in approx 5% of times)
Piety is almost never the best route to go as the first policy tree. It can be the best secondary social policy tree in a religious strategy. It can be used to generate incredible amounts of extra tribute and income especially if it is taken after finishing either Liberty or Tradition.
It could in theory be useful to civilizations such as Byzantine that need to found a religion or else play without a unique ability or to Maya who have a unique shrine that also gives science.
Beyond that there is little reason to choose Piety only because the alternatives are so strong.
IDEOLOGY
- Freedom is the best Ideology for this strategy if you have 2 bonus social policies.
-Taking Voluntary Army ensures you will also have a strong army and not just a strong economy. You can finally deal with your enemies with adequate forces.
If you don't have 2 bonus policies for Freedom, pick an ideology where you have 2 bonus policies. As a rule of thumb, if you are ever in the position to choose an ideology without 2 bonus policies, this means that you made too many mistakes in the game and need to analyze what went wrong.
TRADE ROUTE USAGE
Tributes that you can earn while you send caravans for gold to other civilization can be much, much higher. However, for important reasons (food and production from them are better most of the times), I do not recommend that you use caravans to generate gold, instead they must be used this way:
1) Always send food to the capital city or to another city in Pre-Industrial Eras, unless you have happiness problems and sending food would be a waste. In that case, send production.
Also send production if you have very important reasons like building a World Wonder (such as Sistine Chapel or Taj Mahal)
2) Send production <anywhere> during World Congress Projects such as World Fair, International Games, or International Space Station. Also send production in the end-game when growth no longer has the same impact (After Atomic Era, usually)
3) It can be worthwhile to send caravans to a city state in order to complete it's quest, if it is an important city state and you really need that influence.
4) If you are about to obtain tributes from very rich civilization and you could extract more gold from them if you had a higher GNP, then it could be advisable to use any caravan that happens to be free to send it somewhere to generate gold. The bonus gold generated this way would be much higher.
WORLD CONGRESS
Try to meet all the civilizations as quickly as you can, this way you have a big chance to get to make a proposal when the Congress is founded.
What to propose?
- if something went wrong and you are too behind scientifically, Scholars in Residence is an option. If the game went well avoid this.This is just a bail-out option for you.
- if you have high enough production or if you can increase your production in the next 30 turns (check demographics to see values), then propose World Fair.
- if your production is very low and can't improve it, propose something that you think it can help you, like banning a resource that you don't have, and your enemy has.
- propose International Games
- propose World Religion (when you can pass it) if you have any of yours, of course.
- propose World Ideology (when you can pass it)
VERY IMPORTANT - PROJECT PRODUCTION OVERFLOW
Bonus Tips to win World Projects such as World Fair
Because of how the game engine calculates production (your production is contributed only after the whole turn has passed, not just yours, but it contributes the production of the AI's exactly after they end their turn this creates a weird situation where despite the fact that you are the first player to act, you will be the last player to contribute production to a World Project. For this reason, what this can mean in some instances, for practical purposes, YOU HAVE A TURN LESS THAN THE AIs to contribute production. However, weirdly enough, you also have a big advantage over them, and that is - they don't use the production overflow to generate extra production for projects, and you will!
Besides building/buying as many production buildings as you can/need, (workshop, factory, windmill, etc) and sending trade routes with production to cities,
Project Production overflow
- create production overflow in all cities by ensuring either that
1) what you are building at that time (can be a production building such as factory), will be finished just in time, in the turn where selecting the World Project becomes available.
2) Build the cheapest building/unit that is available (must be finished in 1 turn), so that it will be finished exactly in the turn where selecting World Project becomes available.
3) In some cases the best way to generate overflow is to SELL your shrines in all your cities and then select to build it again 1 turn before the rush for World Project starts. This way, for example, a city that is generating 100 production, will build the shrine for 40 production, and in the next turn, it will contribute 160 production instead of just 100! Do this in all cities for maximum effect. This will give you a big head-start and help you win.
Bonus tips to win Projects
1) Make sure that all civs with higher production than you (if there are any), are at war with as many other civilizations as you can bribe them to be. You can declare war yourself if you want.
2) Generate unhappiness in civilizations that have higher production, by buying their unique luxuries and/or by gifting/selling them cities that you don't need (from conquest or that you bought yourself) This way, their production will be reduced, allowing you to contribute more!
3) If you have excess Great Generals you can now use one or two to steal some Hills or Manufactories or whatnot from somebody or just to get more territory in newly founded cities, if you have any (see 4)
4) When you see that World Fair is proposed as a resolution or if somebody else proposes it, and if you have a too small production in your empire to win the project race, you need to found a few new cities, so that your production will allow you to win. In 30 turns time, you have enough time to do that. This extra production will be very useful.
5) Be sure to be in a golden age during a World Project construction. You have 30 turns time to prepare to obtain a Great Artist, or to have a normal Golden Age on standby. (if you need 50 more happiness for a Golden Age, just delete excess happiness in order to be able to trigger it just at the right time when you need).
SPY USAGE
Mastering Espionage in civ 5 is not a trivial task. Spies can do incredibly useful things for your civilization. It is a rather complex topic that I would rather address in it's own topic. However, some general tips:
1) know that AI cheats and have different rules for how their spies work, compared to yours. This is more of a game awareness tip. For example, a civ was able to steal a tech and at the same time kill one of my spies, despite having a single spy (Renaissance, non-England). This is impossible to happen by normal rules, to the best of my knowledge. The AI cheats in all aspects of the game, and Espionage is not an exception. I would also assume that their spies are replaced faster, but this is just an educated guess.
2) Initially, you can/should use your spy in order to steal techs. Usually, you should steal from a capital with high population. But do not steal from anybody who is a tech leader, preferably not from England, and also, if you send a spy and notice that the player has 1 turn until he finishes University/National College/Public School, just leave the city and go back to the same city again, because if you remain there, the Spy will not use that potential for his first stealing attempt. You will lose 3 turns, but you will gain more, trust me. For example, my spy reached a city, he was going to steal in 23 turns. I noticed Darius was building National College in 1 turn. I left the city and came back again, and after 3 turns, I was now going to steal from him in 14 turns. So I won 6 turns by doing this trick.
3) If you need to pass a resolution such as World Religion, you can use your spy or spies as diplomats and buy support from people, usually from people who hate you the least. In 30 turns time, a single spy can get support from 4-5 civilizations.
4) Start using Coups if you aren't already. The best way to use coups is when the effect of a failure is not something that would greatly impact your game plans, and when you have no influence in that CS anyway. Always have a pledge to protect in place first, as it increases your influence there and, by consequence, the chance for a successful coup.
5) Rigging is something useful to do when you really need to ensure the ally status of a particularly important City-State that you do not want to lose. Maybe because it is placed in a very strategic position. Having a Spy doing rigging there will make Coup attempts less likely by maintaining a high influence there and by competing versus other spies trying to do rigging there.
ARMY COMPOSITION in pre-Modern eras (land)
The main damage dealers in are ranged units (Archer-type). Have as many as you think you need. Also, try to promote them to Gatling Guns only after they get their bonus range promotion. Other than that, try to have:
1) At least 2 Warrior-line units promoted, one with Shock3 and one with Drill 3, both with the Cover promotions, and then the other useful promotions. This is so that you can fortify certain key positions, should you need to do so. Citadels must be fortified to ensure that they are not easily pillaged. A warrior-type fortified in a citadel with these promotions will never die if he is not in obsolete form, and most of the times he will not die even if he is obsolete. (Pikeman vs Rifleman) In the same way, Scout with Survivalism 2 and fortified will survive a Musketman attack, making early scouts relevant in combat a very long time.
2) At least 2 Cavalry-type units promoted, in the same Shock/Drill fashion (used to capture cities and finish off units, and steal workers, pillage improvements)
3) All promoted scouts that also have Medic 2 promotion can be used in wars to aid units, otherwise then can be kept in garrisons. Any scout with Scouting 3 can be useful for his ability.
4) Having a few promoted siege units is always nice but until Artillery their usefulness is questionable in most situations because of their lesser ability to move and shoot in the same turn and also because of their own vulnerability in that they aren't able to fortify for extra defense if needed. Artillery is great to have but is vulnerable to Bombers in the early Modern Era. For this reason I do not recommend having an army that relies too much on Siege units.
WONDERS TO BUILD
Building wonders is not extremely critical to the Deity gameplay. I would not advise that any strategy be based on always getting a certain wonder. For this reason, the following represents only my general tips about the Wonders from personal experience and should be taken as such. Wonders that are not mentioned are too unlikely to be built or are too weak to be mentioned. If there is a window of opportunity for you, try to build:
- Pyramids/Temple of Artemis (you can't do both) - best wonders in the game, hard difficulty
- Oracle - bonus is strong and helps to finish Liberty or Tradition much faster, average difficulty
- Porcelain Tower - decent and low difficulty
- Big Ben - decent and low difficulty
- Brandenburg Gate - powerful bonus, low difficulty
- Louvre - decent bonus, average difficulty
- Neuschwanstein - great bonus, low difficulty
- Hubble Space Telescope - great bonus, low difficulty
- Eiffel Tower - good for it's deny value, average difficulty
- Cristo Redentor - weak bonus, low difficulty
- Sydney Opera House- great bonus, low difficulty
- CN Tower - great bonus, low difficulty
- Ideology wonders - great bonus - low difficulty
POSSIBLE QUESTIONS:
Q1: How will I survive the early game wars if I declare wars so quickly?
A1: I do not do anything that special and I can do it. So can you. Fortify units in key places, use the power of many scouts and of the 2 early great generals. If you need, take Tradition for strong city attacks. If you really want to be safe the whole game, just take Honor and put a citadel near your capital. Fortify a warrior type in it and it will never die.
Q2. Do I really earn enough gold by declaring war on so many civilizations? Without having almost no army, even?
A2: Well, yes, unless 700 Gold per turn in Industrial era seems a low amount to you.
Q3. Is this a bug or something?
A3. This is most probably a WAI feature. (working as intended). Is it a bug when a civilization far, far away, decides to give me his last city when he doesn't have any army? If no, then Gold Tributes are no bug either.
Well, that's kinda it...
I am sure my guide could have been a little more detailed but I will be sure to answer any questions especially objections to how such a weird strategy can work in a Deity game.
Apologies for any spelling mistakes that may have remained in this guide, I will correct them when I notice them.
Thank you for reading my guide for Deity play and I hope at least one Immortal player crushes Deity using my strategy.
- With respect, Tiberiu
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." Thanks for your interest in trying out this strategy. Let me know if you manage to obtain tribute by how I described (don't forget to switch all cities on "Wealth" when you make peace, too. )
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