[BTS] Transitioning from Immortal to Deity

[brutusrox]

Hey all, I've been playing BTS almost since its start, and after lots of time spent on the forums and on youtube, I have finally began to win about 50% of my immortal games. With this confidence, also comes games where I destroy my economy as a result of war, foreign AI uncontrollably vassal each other, or I miss judge my opponents, and under prepare for war. Nevertheless I am tired of immortal, and I am determined to improve to Deity. So to all those Deity players out there, what elevated your game to the next level? And what should an Immortal player prepare for as they enter Deity?

If you want some extra clarity towards some of my struggles on immortal, I started a game and uploaded my first 100 turns to youtube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4ENEZA7Fw6T_lGtyLDLwg/featured Im really hoping to get some positive feedback from the community. Thanks and Cheers!

Moderator Action: Moved this thread to S&T as you should get more help here. Good luck! leif

 

[Tapani]

Cannot help you with beating Deity, but watching your inefficient use of your scout in the beginning makes me cringe ^^
Use diagonal moves whenever you can when scouting. You often miss out on making two moves on a turn with your scout when you go to a forest/jungle on move one.

 

[brutusrox]

Ahhh I see what your saying! I think I was trying to avoid barbs or something but I wasn't thinking enough to get those extra tiles. Thanks!

 

[krikav]

First of all, I'm so glad that you have found your way here to S&T!

And wow, a youtube clip!
I'll watch and see if I can provide some useful feedback, but before watching I'll just reply some general stuff.

I just recently moved to diety.
I played alot around 2010-2012 and the path from nobles up to immortal was pretty straightforward. I could not manage to beat diety though.
The jump from Imm to Diety is no joke!
Had a long hiatus and recently picked up this game and that seem to have done the trick.

Having a 50-50 win rate on immortal is probably abit low to tackle deity with confidence. The jump is just hilarious.
I have seen alot of players trying out a "Imm+" setting, where you basically have a deity game, but the AI just start with one settler instead of two.
That could be an option to get a feel for the flow of the game.

If you want to give yourself an edge, I would suggest to use a mapscript which favours the player more, like a archepeilago map. The AI can't really handle boats and naval invasions that well.
Here is a golden opportunity for you:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/news-botm-162-deity-starts-25october.637660/
It's a game of the month map, so alot of skilled players will play this map.
It's just the type of map that favours the player, it's normal speed and deity difficulty (which isn't always the case with GOTM). And you get a nice bonus of starting with a worker!


One thing that I was uncomfortable with previously but since I learned to accept helped me alot was to wage war from a tech dissadvantage.
My usual recipie for success on immortal was to get a crushing tech advantage and then win.
On diety, I now fall behind in most categories, but as long as you have some key military tech, like steel or MT, that doesn't matter.
The AI isn't going to win over your stack of cannons and musketmen with his physics powered airships

The basic recipie for success is this:
1) Get a key military tech before the AI has a counter.
2) STOP research completly, be absolutely relentless with whipping your cities to the ground massing units.
3) Conquer land, get a vassal or two.
4) Stop and recover.
5) Rinse and repeat.

 

[krikav]

Now I have watched the segment from T0 -> Settle capital.

You do not mention the option of settling on top of the plains hill stone, which gives a awesome 3hammer city tile.
On T0 you moved settler one tile and then pressed end turn. Settler can move two. No barbs at T0.
Blue circles you can completly ignore. Turn them off, they are misleading more often than not.
You settled in such a way that you could not grab the fish, awful decision imho.

And yes what Tapani is saying is correct. Your use of the scout is really sub-par.
For example: At 16:30 in the video, 3680BC, you move your scout SE straight to the forest. You could and should in such a situation FIRST move your scout E to flatland, and evaluate what you see. And then you can move S into the forest.
Thats just plain better than moving straight into the forest.

Jumping to 55:00 I see you are building pyramids. That second city I should have placed on top of the stone to save a ton of workerturns IF I wanted to build pyramids.
And you just finish BW, and reason if you perhaps should get archery.
You then choose to go writing, which was probably the right call. BUT then you shouldn't have placed that 3city where you did.
It should be placed up there grabbing the copper. You do need something to defend yourself.
Also, the corn was already in your culture and improved. The flatland copper tile with it's 2F4H is an awesome tile.

 

[krikav]

I saw the first 3 min in the second clip.
3 turns after you settled your third city in the wrong location, Mongolia grabbed the copper which you should have settled.

 

[lymond]

Some great folks here with extensive Deity experience should stop by and help, but I recommend you follow this thread by @Lain for some advice as well:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/post-a-tough-deity-map-for-me-to-play.620140/

Also, note that Lain does a lot of let's plays on those games. Check is sig for the link to his YT channel. He will really help you with your openings, which are so important in this game regardless of difficulty.

In addition, I recommend just spending a good bit of time around these parts, reading threads, contributing, and maybe even posting your own shadow game for advice. It sounds like you really love the game - like we do - so might as well join us fanatics

edit: I watched a little bit of your first vid. One thing that perplexed me is why you moved your settler just 1 tile. First, you should have a pretty good idea of where you would settle anyway based on the info you have. Yep, the search for food is key, but given the scout move and settler move, clearly there was not much food in the area with maybe a possibility of something in the fog to the N.

So settling on the stone for the power tile was clearly the target here. The move of the settler as you did was good to get more info, but you should have continued to move him 1NW toward the stone so you could hop up there next turn. Instead you had to waste another turn - but moved to the PH anyway (not terrible but stone much better).

Yep not the ideal cap, but sometimes you get starts like this one. At least you have the 3H center tile with stone, a cow, and plenty of tile to farm, including the FPs. Not a Bureau cap, but good production city Also, immediate access to stone with Masonry.

Post the start save too if you can, ideally as a World Builder save since you are using MacBuffy.

BW should have been your second tech

 

[brutusrox]

Now I have watched the segment from T0 -> Settle capital.

You do not mention the option of settling on top of the plains hill stone, which gives a awesome 3hammer city tile.
On T0 you moved settler one tile and then pressed end turn. Settler can move two. No barbs at T0.
Blue circles you can completly ignore. Turn them off, they are misleading more often than not.
You settled in such a way that you could not grab the fish, awful decision imho.

And yes what Tapani is saying is correct. Your use of the scout is really sub-par.
For example: At 16:30 in the video, 3680BC, you move your scout SE straight to the forest. You could and should in such a situation FIRST move your scout E to flatland, and evaluate what you see. And then you can move S into the forest.
Thats just plain better than moving straight into the forest.

Jumping to 55:00 I see you are building pyramids. That second city I should have placed on top of the stone to save a ton of workerturns IF I wanted to build pyramids.
And you just finish BW, and reason if you perhaps should get archery.
You then choose to go writing, which was probably the right call. BUT then you shouldn't have placed that 3city where you did.
It should be placed up there grabbing the copper. You do need something to defend yourself.
Also, the corn was already in your culture and improved. The flatland copper tile with it's 2F4H is an awesome tile.

Wow I see what your saying regarding my poor city placement, and its really bugging me now... Stealing that extra city from Mongolia would have been so tasty! I definitely need to plan my cities out better. Thanks for your help!

 

[brutusrox]

Some great folks here with extensive Deity experience should stop by and help, but I recommend you follow this thread by @Lain for some advice as well:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/post-a-tough-deity-map-for-me-to-play.620140/

Also, note that Lain does a lot of let's plays on those games. Check is sig for the link to his YT channel. He will really help you with your openings, which are so important in this game regardless of difficulty.

In addition, I recommend just spending a good bit of time around these parts, reading threads, contributing, and maybe even posting your own shadow game for advice. It sounds like you really love the game - like we do - so might as well join us fanatics

edit: I watched a little bit of your first vid. One thing that perplexed me is why you moved your settler just 1 tile. First, you should have a pretty good idea of where you would settle anyway based on the info you have. Yep, the search for food is key, but given the scout move and settler move, clearly there was not much food in the area with maybe a possibility of something in the fog to the N.

So settling on the stone for the power tile was clearly the target here. The move of the settler as you did was good to get more info, but you should have continued to move him 1NW toward the stone so you could hop up there next turn. Instead you had to waste another turn - but moved to the PH anyway (not terrible but stone much better).

Yep not the ideal cap, but sometimes you get starts like this one. At least you have the 3H center tile with stone, a cow, and plenty of tile to farm, including the FPs. Not a Bureau cap, but good production city Also, immediate access to stone with Masonry.

Post the start save too if you can, ideally as a World Builder save since you are using MacBuffy.

BW should have been your second tech

I love watching @Lain videos, his vids have been a tremendous help to my game, and he's big reason why I posted a video. I guess in the beginning I was trying to find food without venturing too far away from the FP cow. I agree now that I should have stayed near the stone, I was too greedy! Unfortunately I can't get the start save, just the 375BC save. Thanks for your help!

P.s. Im a fan of your vids on youtube, and hope to see more!

 

[Olafeson]

@lymond

just curious why you suggest BW as second tech? Assuming he settled on stone or related to his actual gameplay on YT? To check for copper, if he settles on
the stone. It is basically a gamble on copper and without food and forests on the stone hill. Just assuming he would have settled the stone, how strong would have been masonry and Great Wall for barb defence?

Like going Masonry- AH - Agri (building GW and some mines). Then rex and skip BW for a while since you do not need Slavery with low food tiles and no forests.

 

[lymond]

@Olafson

Yeah, that comment was more about what I was looking at in the video, as opposed to what should have been done. Anyway, I'm still going to focus on worker techs first. The question depending on where one settled is worker vs. idle.

On stone, I'd probably go AH/worker first. Masonry vs. BW is at question here. I tend grab BW first thing, but in this case there is certainly limited whipping and forests in that location, but there are some. On IMM, which OP's game was set, I would not probably play for Great Wall..more about Mids, but that does not mean Masonry is urgent. However, putting hammers into GW for fail gold is certainly a consideration for an earlier Masonry.

On Deity it's another question though as, as you mention, GW could be an option for safety. But I'd still go AH first.

 

[lymond]

I love watching @Lain I guess in the beginning I was trying to find food without venturing too far away from the FP cow. I agree now that I should have stayed near the stone, I was too greedy! Unfortunately I can't get the start save, just the 375BC save. Thanks for your help!

P.s. Im a fan of your vids on youtube, and hope to see more!

I understand. Point I was trying to make you understand is to analyze your start more meticulously and have potential spots in mind based on what you see, if you plan to move your settler. It seemed you from what you were saying in the vid is that you were more concerned about what you did not have than what you have. The city you did end up settling was ok, but that was based on moves in hindsight one should not have made. You we always want good food to start..well..in every city. But sometimes we are always dealt those cards, so we try to make the best of what we have.

those old vids...glad you liked them

Edit: and your élan for IV would make you a good recruit for SGOTM (Succession Game of the Month), which is starting soon. Some new teams are going to form. Sign-up here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-26-sign-up-thread.632164/