[BTS] Trying for Deity/Immortal win

[Staler87]

I haven't replied in awhile due to being busy in real life, which, shockingly enough, comes before me playing civ IV. Nonetheless, I advanced to the point where Saladin has Alphabet (after restarting I didn't continue on with that old game). I tried to get more done whipping things out like crazy and such. I'm not sure where to found my third city. I hope I did a better job this time:

 

[Staler87]

Any advice on where to found cities, what I screwed up on (probably lots ), tiles to work, techs to get, and Saladin having Alphabet?

 

[Anysense]

I would probably settle between the dyes northwestwards. Obviously corn+copper spot is better but it can wait. I would seriuosly have considered settling Nottingham 2N of where Gergovia is for blocking reasons.
Whatever you do, don't put the overflow into barracks.
Make York work gold instead of a cottage.
Edit: Although Boudica's city placement is horrible, still elepult rush may be worth it. You need to scout her territory if you want to do it.

 

[MegaLurker]

In the above situation I would be tempted to settle the copper/corn immediately and then go for elepults with 4 cities. You have a good amount of forest to turn into a quick army, and between financial/gold/marble/lots of riverside to cottage you should be able to recover fast enough to keep up in tech and even win Lib. Boudica is a difficult neighbour to share a lot of border with, trying to expand peacefully against her might cost you the game.

 

[Fippy]

Micro detail (thou it's good to learn avoiding them)..plains hill mines are usually a complete waste of time early (and later often too)
Look for green hills instead (1w of London here), or with floodplains you often want no mines besides copper and focus on food for whipping (like floodplains).

 

[frostysh]

I wonder what speed of the game is easiest for Human player vs AI on Deity? Map: Terra, Huge, Clim. Rand., Sea Rand., Cviliz. Random to all, Human player included. For my experience, the easiest is the faster, coz' the Marathon in somehow way giving to AI an ability to create the insane amount of cities! And then army .
Also question about Ragging Barbarians, is it easy for human or for AI, on the above mentioned setting.
What about Spy stuff, I was not able overhelm AI in this field, I just curios, is it worth to spent a resources there from 4kBC to 1,5kAD?

Thanx for the answers.

 

[Pangaea]

Marathon is by far easier. Quite simply, it doesn't feel like Deity any more. They get more cities, sure, but your army lasts much, much longer, so you can get all those cities easier, which snowballs you into a winning position. Instead of building settlers, you build an army and get developed cities instead.

It's slow as all hell since you have 3 times as many turns as on normal speed, but it's definitely easier.

 

[frostysh]

Marathon is by far easier. Quite simply, it doesn't feel like Deity any more. They get more cities, sure, but your army lasts much, much longer, so you can get all those cities easier, which snowballs you into a winning position. Instead of building settlers, you build an army and get developed cities instead.
It's slow as all hell since you have 3 times as many turns as on normal speed, but it's definitely easier.

I cannot understand, the AI have same amount of turns as you have -1 (coz' Human Player Civ makes their move first) on Marathon. I have played a tens of games on Marathon, first tried Huge size, then Standard, Map Terra, all other options is default and random. And this is not easy.

If you will focus to build army, you need a lot of cash, to obtain a cash you need some of Cottages (1 Cottage per 4 additional Warriors, or 1 Cottage per 3 Archers, as I remembered, but it can be wrong), to obtain Cottages you need a Pottery, and build a cottage some-times we need to clear wood/jungle, which is means Bronze Working/Iron Working. This is the bloody hell amount of turns, for such time, neighborhood AI will grow army that is just impossible to beat...
In addition, in how the hell manner you want to assault the towns?! It is almost impossible with Warriors, in case of Archer you need 3:1, or even 4:1 your Archer vs defender Archer .
Even your city will have a luck, and will appear near a zone where lot of Hummers, still I cannot understand how to possible rush a darn Deity AI .

 

[Pangaea]

It's still Deity, so of course you can't attack with warriors or archers. You need proper units. But compared to Normal speed Deity, Marathon is a lot easier. Let's say you get Horse Archers or whatever, you can use these guys to pretty much clean up the map. On normal speed, you're lucky if you can do much damage at all with them.

Of course, a unique unit like War Chariots or Immortals are better, because you get them sooner and they are stronger than normal Chariots.

For an indication, take the best games in the Hall of Fame. People have won Mara-Deity at silly times, like 600-700AD for space colony. You can forget about that on normal speed, no matter what you do. Currently the best game is 1500AD.

Put simply, the biggest advantage the human has over the Deity AI is warfare. Marathon means you have 3 times as many turns to take advantage of this benefit. And your army will last longer without getting obsolete.

 

[frostysh]

It's still Deity, so of course you can't attack with warriors or archers. You need proper units. But compared to Normal speed Deity, Marathon is a lot easier. Let's say you get Horse Archers or whatever, you can use these guys to pretty much clean up the map. On normal speed, you're lucky if you can do much damage at all with them.
Of course, a unique unit like War Chariots or Immortals are better, because you get them sooner and they are stronger than normal Chariots.
For an indication, take the best games in the Hall of Fame. People have won Mara-Deity at silly times, like 600-700AD for space colony. You can forget about that on normal speed, no matter what you do. Currently the best game is 1500AD.
Put simply, the biggest advantage the human has over the Deity AI is warfare. Marathon means you have 3 times as many turns to take advantage of this benefit. And your army will last longer without getting obsolete.

So is the only possibility to achieve a victory on Deity is the early warfare? At Random I have played over 50 games, and my civ-s had the access to "Horses" in 5 - 10 games :/ maximum. Last time I have played, my civ has been conquered with an assault helicopters, naval destroyers, and a mechanized squads vs archers and spearmans around 1800 AD . And it is horror when your neighborhood is something like Chingiz Khan guys, or Montezume , they attacking like a crazy.

Where I can look at this "Hall of fame", and download replays of profy-players?

 

[Pangaea]

If you have archers and spearmen for army on Marathon in 1800AD, you're doing a lot of things wrong. At a guess, Deity is far from the right level for you, and you need to work on the basics before stepping up to such a difficult level. Mara-Deity is easier than normal Deity, but it's still Deity, so the AI have considerable production and research advantages over the human. You need to get the basics right to compensate. And the one big advantage the human has is our brain and strategic thinking, like the ability to beeline certain key techs. Then take advantage of better military units or focused strategy, and beat the AI.

My recommendation would be to read some of the threads in this sub-forum, and also to start your own thread where you ask for advice. Start a game, take a screenshot without moving any units, attach the savegame to the thread, and that way people can play along and help you. You can play short turnsets, of 10-20 turns (at least in the beginning), and post about the progress and ask for advice at each step. This helps a great deal, and will improve your play.

The Hall of Fame can be found here btw: https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ4-hall-of-fame-discussion.166, with an overview of the best games here: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/.

Don't be too discouraged by the above table. The games are kind of doctored, in the sense that people tend to only play fantastic starts, where you have double gold or the like in the capital.

 

[frostysh]

If you have archers and spearmen for army on Marathon in 1800AD, you're doing a lot of things wrong. At a guess, Deity is far from the right level for you, and you need to work on the basics before stepping up to such a difficult level. Mara-Deity is easier than normal Deity, but it's still Deity, so the AI have considerable production and research advantages over the human. You need to get the basics right to compensate. And the one big advantage the human has is our brain and strategic thinking, like the ability to beeline certain key techs. Then take advantage of better military units or focused strategy, and beat the AI. . .

Well yeah. But I cannot play on the easier diff set than the max available difficulty in the PC game. I thought CIV series will be something like "Heroes" or "Baldur's Gate" (with the all mods that can increase difficulty), but it seems the hell no! Son of the preacher man "Deity" AI there is tough. Downloaded BUFF Mod from the link in your post. My feelings about that:

1) For the first time was no GU Interface O_O, after I have downloaded "Stable" all seems ok.

2) Too many thing on the screen, especially for my 1024x768 resolution, need to make them less. The mod is very customable so I hope it will be easy.

3) Mod telling who exactly constructed "Wonder", I don't remember such things in vanilla.

4) Cool things about "Great Person" much more easier than in vanilla.

Also I have downloaded few replays of profy-players, as far as I can notice, their crucial tactic is based on Slavery + Pre-chopped wood.
I have played another dozen of games, on BUFF mod with Random/Deity/Terra/Huge/Ragging_Barbarians/Toroidal, and it was fun! Like a drug , I fear I will abuse CIVIV. And I as the noob :/, have realized a few things:

1) One or two closest "Deity" AI civs, can be defeated in the early game, if you have a super mega luck, you just need to be randomed onto Aggressive Civ, and your main base must have a lot of Product (Hammers). Just make your city level 2, or even 3, and start train Warriors with 10% Str + Archers, depends what you need, Archers is good for the first strike (as mentioned in the game tips), and warriors is good to wreak a havoc into a land, take rectangles from being used by enemy city, or to finish damaged by archers soldiers. And attack like a crazy, like AI . Sometimes Ragging Barbarians helps , sometime not .

2) Strategy number two, Bronze Working + Worker(s) and then Settlers + Archers, if you will be a super lucky, you will no need to protect against crazy barbarians for some time, and they can even help to hold down expansion of AI ! But after some time, be ready to protect your cities against Spearman/Axeman and hordes of Archers. The protection of water rectangles even hard .

Question: Is it possible to win in my setting without abuse of "Slavery" ?

 

[Staler87]

@lymond
Do you have any advice for me before I continue?
Other than don't put overflow into barracks.

 

[Anysense]

You need to put some beakers into alpha so you can trade it for math. Check every turn what Saladin would give you for math. Thus you will know if he started researching it.
There isn't much to build except that York needs library. Perhaps axes, with a few more you could take that barbarian city in the north.