Trying for the elusive Deity win (guidance appreciated)

Advisors
While OP's advisor council was squabbling around, talking about how we were going to lose all the city states as friends if we don't act soon, and talking about how every other military could wipe us off the face of the planet, a new face walked in to the room. Instead of offering false status reports that OP was aware of, he uttered words that made sense to the Overlord of Poland. The One Prince of Poland also believed in the new advisor, so the new face, who called himself Maxym, was offered the position of Grand Advisor of the Oceanfaring Provinces. The other advisors were all jailed, and are being held in prison indefinitely. We have plans in place to gift these advisors to the British, just to make Elizabeth's life that much more annoying.

Ottoman settlers
Soon after the last update, the Ottomans settled very close to the west of the empire, where OP would have eventually wanted his fourth city. The Polish did not have happiness to support an expansion there, though, so they were ok with the Ottomans settling there. The Ottomans also sent a new trade route to Warsaw through this settlement, so there was no reason to go to war immediately.

Question: One thing I have trouble with is finding the time to actually build up troops and go to war, when there's so much development that can be done. I tend not to declare war until bombers, because when I can get more science, gold, production, or food, I will really want to get that. I feel like I can't see the benefit of warfare sometimes, especially if I have a weak army to start. Any suggestions about when it's right and when it's wrong?

City States
After traveling west through Ottoman lands, our triremes moved east through Moroccan and English lands. There we found many city states that we could protect. When we pledge our protection, we agree to put on a show and pretend to privately scold any civilization that takes tribute from them. OP also promises the city state leaders that if the city state is conquered, he will be moderately sad, and might even shed a tear. No promises though on that part. In return, city states agree to be friends with us and give us awesome stuff.

Trade routes
Until everyone started to travel across the ocean, the Polish Empire was the center of trade and commerce in the region. England, the Ottomans, and the Moroccans were trading with the Organized Power, providing some much needed science and gold. Once harbors were reached, Warsaw sent some food to Lodz, making the city grow and prosper. When the tech for education was reached, the money from the trade routes was put in to buying 3 universities immediately, and the Oxford university was built to assure Poland would have the ability to travel through the ocean.

Policies and Wonders
With new technologies pouring in faster than ever before, and spies stealing techs, OP caught up to the computers in tech in the early renaissance! Using this tech advantage, he ordered the construction of the Sistine Chapel and the Porcelain tower. With the Other Policies that come from Poland's UA, OP now had two versions of +50% science for research agreements, which will hopefully bring about an eternal lead in science the likes I've never had before on this difficulty.

Other civs and relations
Overall, I have fantastic relations with other civs. The Ottomans are concerning with having 2 expansions directly surrounding me, but while I constructed a couple of crossbowmen to be safe, we did declare our friendship. Morocco is my best friend as always, and they have spread a fantastic religion to my lands (with monasteries, my incense plantations yield 2 culture and 2 faith each). England hates me because I've stolen tech from them and because I've build a few wonders, but nobody really likes Elizabeth anyway, so that's ok. On the other continent, Songhai is my friend, while everyone else is friendly or neutral towards me. While Songhai could ruin my relationship with everyone if they start becoming a runaway on that continent (I hope not, because they're right up with me in tech), I can still make research agreements with them for now, which is nice.

Current Plan
Screenshot:
Spoiler :

While Grand Advisor Maxym suggests I delay ideology, I am planning on being more bold, and am going to try to get the world to follow my ideology without any tourism. I have a lot of money saved up, and when Big Ben gets finished, I will have coal in my empire. Then, I am planning on rush buying 3 factories, and getting freedom as my ideology. After that, I am hoping to go straight to radio, where I can propose the world ideology be freedom in 2 sessions of the world congress (hopefully before enough people get an ideology of their own to oppose it). I've done this plan on lower difficulties before, but I think I'm in a unique position of maybe being able to get this done. If I can, freedom is the best choice for me because I don't have many cities, are not planning on warmongering, and am definitely not behind in tech. Getting to the modern era early as Poland is also nice, because it's an additional social policy, and you can never have too many of those.


Side notes
The world is overflowing with religion. The Celts and the Ethiopians are both in the game, although Ethiopia may not be for much longer. There are also 5 religious city states out of 16. Because Poland really needs more social policies, I proposed the world fair for the first world congress, which will be voted on in 9 turns. I have a lot of production, so I should be able to win it. This also had an added benefit of helping me diplomatically with everyone, because everyone likes the world fair! :)

PS: also, amazingly few words begin with O. Some of these are definitely stretches... :)
 
you can do this man, I have faith in you! I by the way share the problem of school. But the enemy will make mistakes in war. Punish them for it and you will win! I also have handy guides to show you. They are at near my signature.
 
Plans and Planning went Awry
Soon after I stopped last time, the world entered the industrial era, and a new vote was cast to determine the host of the world congress. Every other civilization assumed that the court would stay in England, but OP used his Omnipotently Positive diplomacy, and casted his votes with Morocco to host the congress. He realized quickly though, that his plan from last time had a problem: he actually needed a number of city states to support him if he were to be able to propose freedom as the world ideology.

Meanwhile, an Ethiopian envoy came with a declaration of friendship offer. The envoy came with a well rehearsed speech, talking about the past glories of the Ethiopian empire, but while the offer sounded tempting, OP made the decision to decline this offer. Disappointed, the Ethiopian envoy then asked for asylum in the great nation of Poland, which we secretly granted. Songhai still has no idea where the envoy went, and I eventually moved a spy to Warsaw to make sure he doesn't figure it out.

Spoiler :


No rush buying, but radio anyway
Soon after the great nation of Ethiopia was no more, a great Polish writer and a great Polish scientist appeared. By finishing rationalism so quickly, OP was able to use his free tech on getting out radio before the next world congress vote. Getting to the modern era in 1170 meant that Poland was the first to get an ideology, and in commemoration of the great people that formed our nation, OP chose to free them all!

World Fair
The world fair began, and OP was confident that Poland could host the world fair by focusing all its production energy on it. Unfortunately, I underestimated the might of Songhai, and didn't set my cities on production focus while the fair was being built. Therefore, I just missed out on the culture bonuses, and therefore missed out on a lot of culture and city state influence (4 city states were in culture races at the time) because of this. A great artist was sitting and waiting to start a golden age after the fair was built, and there were a many number of things I could have done to win this fair. Still, I did get a social policy out of it. Poland needs all of those it can get!

Spoiler :


City States and Freedom
To celebrate Poland's newfound freedom, OP ordered the construction of the Statue of Liberty to be built in Warsaw. Upon completing it, the city states of the world were so impressed by the power of freedom, that they ordered freedom to be made the official world ideology! Poland officially denies that there may have been some very minor cases of serious bribery involved in the vote. Meanwhile, Morocco, the host of the world congress, has been betraying me left and right when it comes to world congress proposals. Despite having a DoF with me, first they proposed to ban marble (which I have), which was not passed. Then, after voting for freedom as a world ideology, and not having an ideology yet (I am the only one with an ideology), they proposed to repeal freedom as a world ideology. Some friends they are...

Side notes
In 1505, Poland finished the construction of the Christo Redentor, which will bring in new social policies to the state. I have finished the patronage, rationalism, and tradition trees, hold 3 policies in freedom, 1 policy in exploration, and the commerce opener. I have 216 points in tech, while England, the second place techer, has 192. I'm pretty satisfied with this. My goal right now is to continue to research agreement while spending money on city states.
 
Well, I'll do a write up tomorrow, but currently it's 1675, and I'm not sure I've ever been in a better situation than I'm in right now on any difficulty higher than or equal to emperor. I was kind of joking about the OP of Poland, but now I'm starting to think they're actually just plain broken. I'm having fun though, and I'm dominating legitimately, and that's what counts :).
 
Upon reaching the atomic era, OP's health started to fade, and I, redwings1340, started running most of the kingdom in his absence.

Diplomacy fading
The Ottoman Empire, which has long been an upstanding friend to us, came out of nowhere and denounced our actions in 1520. This would be the first in a series of decisions that would define diplomacy on a global stage for years to come, some good, and some bad. While nobody can truly understand what goes on in mad Suleiman's mind, their denouncement probably had to do with my massive city state buying push that started before passing freedom as the world ideology. Soon afterwards, every city state was paid off was overjoyed at my freedom loving empire, and have been staunch allies of Poland ever since.

Ideologies and Alliances
In 1520, England was the first lesser nation to achieve an ideology, and they disappointingly chose to declare for a communist regime. Their absolutely ridiculous population 39 capital (around +15 pop on every other large city in the game) probably benefited from a little social order, but they also took on social discontent from the world ideology. This discontent grew in 1540, when Morocco chose to join my empire in adopting freedom! My long standing relationship with the Moroccan merchants held and we declared new bonds of friendship between our two nations.

World congress
Unfortunately, I could not risk the much regretted Moroccan proposal to repeal freedom as the world ideology pass, so I sacrificed voting for Islam as the world religion to ensure that freedom was safe. Then, I proposed the international games as the next vote, knowing that Poland needs more social policies if they are to remain competitive in the world. The Moroccans proposed that Islam be nominated as the world religion, and this time, Polish votes will be going towards that proposition, and it will likely pass. Meanwhile, Songhai also adopted freedom in 1590, keeping our friendly relationship alive, while the Ottomans adopted order in 1600.

Sydney
Poland requires more Social Policies, so in 1645, I finished building the Sydney Opera House in... Warsaw. Sydney gave us food and science in return for the rights to name this building, and I love my city state friends, so I let them do that.

Sad news
Upon entering the information era, OP gave out one last gasp, gave us one last social policy, and passed away at the old age of 5,500. Upon his death, an election was convened to determine who would run the country. Grand Advisor Maxym had a large following and boasted the highest general difficulty level of the candidates, while Supporting Master CountAccountant had an unrelenting optimism and an 100% deity win rate. In the end though, my bold and successful plan to get Poland to be a freedom loving empire and my unique access to my computer won me the vote, and I became the official leader of Poland in a fair and free election.

More world wonders
Immediately after being elected the leader of Poland, I ordered the pious Muslims of my country to train a great engineer, and I quickly built a telescope that could improve our understanding of the universe around us (Hubble). Meanwhile, I also built the Eiffel Tower, because I couldn't really think of anything else to do in Krakow. Citizens from around the world were surprised at the construction of such a thing, because no common citizen in the world had ever heard of Poland before (tourism increased from 0 to 12). While only a few visited, I like to think the ones who did were impressed at our fantastic and well developed cities, but I know they really just came to see the tower and leave.

Side Notes
Now that OP is no longer running this empire, I don't feel the need to get every single social policy I can, so I'm planning on voting against my own proposal to run the international games. I feel as though a better use of my time would be to build up my military infrastructure, so if a war happens, I can build up troops and defend myself effectively. Getting DoWed by the Ottomans and English before I can build anything would be the only conceivable way I could lose right now I think, as I am 12! techs ahead of the second place sciencer. With the next world congress I am going to propose the international space station.

Also, Carthage decided to be a loner and took autocracy. I think the Celts took order, but I'm not entirely certain.

Things I've been learning
I always thought food trade routes would be good for small cities, but when you get freedom, they become AWESOME for big cities as well. They allow me to feed my cities so I can work my specialists without starving, and with the statue of liberty, rationalism, and freedom, I am getting so many benefits from these guys. I'm loving it! Sure, I'm missing out on a lot of gold, but internal trade routes are really fantastic the entire game.

Social policies are awesome. Wonders that give you a social policy are awesome. Poland is awesome. Poland is quite broken, but I'm running away with this game by so much... Oh, this is sweet!
 
:lol: I think that this is my favorite update so far. Far too many good quips to single out here.

It really does sound like you almost can't lose at this point, although I don't want to jinx you. 12 techs is a pretty substantial lead. I agree with your strategy of building up your military now just in case.

I'm not sure if you have recently tried to bribe your most threatening rivals to attack other civs (or other civs to attack them). If not, it might be a good way to take their attention off of you.
 
Well, I have finished the game, and I could not have asked for a better last game of Civ before school!

If Diplo victory were on, I would have won that way in 1800 AD, on turn 270.

As things were, I got a scientific victory on turn 278, in 1816 AD.

That was a fantastic game.

Yeah.

I'll do a full write up later.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :


By the end of the game, I was 15 techs ahead of the next guys. On deity! Yeah, I'm a bit stunned at this, and this was a good way for my summer to end.
 
Nice! I never doubted you could do it, not even once, from the moment you announced that you were 12 techs ahead until the moment you won the game. Congrats again, I know that's a great feeling.

I'm looking forward to the writeup.
 
I don't even know how that works.
 
All right, I will now attempt to relate the last 100 years of the world before Poland launched up in to space. This will be intense as a runaway game with no warfare gets, and as dramatic as watching a predictable lead up to a movie you've already seen the last 10 minutes of.

Warfare a Continent Away
As a lover of city states, and as a bigger lover of the stuff they give me, I fulfilled my vows of protection to La Venta when I was mildly annoyed when Carthage sacked the city. Fortunately, before my next turn, Songhai came in and liberated the city state, and took the Carthaginian invading force by storm. Carthage retreated, and the city state was safe. Meanwhile, after being sacked twice, a La Ventan merchant came to my empire, and said that in order to recover, Polish acquisition of science and faith from them would have to slow down. In reality though, I saw through this clever charade, so I sent the merchant off with 1000 gold in return for them forgetting that this exchange of words ever happened. They were undertaking a public works project at the time, presumably to recover from the damage of all the battles going on around it, and La Venta has been my ally ever since. To help them stay alive, I also offered them a bazooka to keep away the Carthaginians and, secretly, to enforce the Polish alliance (Arsenal of democracy).

Now, the other city states of the world loved us, and as proof, all of the city states decided to hold completely fair and free elections to determine which civilization they would support in the long run. Officially, the government of Poland has never tried to influence any city state to support them through either bribery or election rigging. Unofficially, the election rigging part of this is true, but there is a well organized group outside of the government who doesn't adhere to our standards. The Private Offices of Poland, a group of citizens who formed without the government's official consent, may or may not have formed the greatest vote rigging organization in the history of the world.

Spoiler :


World Congress Politics
As the dominant member of the world congress, I was in the unique position of making declarations, and then claiming I have worldwide support for them after they were passed. With my guidance, Islam was passed as the world religion, and the international games, my own proposal, was blocked at the hands of city states I bribed. city states concerned about their lack of inclusion in them.

Military Preparations
Meanwhile, while the free Moroccan traders remained our staunch allies and trading partners, the communist Ottomans and English were around me, and threatening war. To deter them, Poland needed a strong defense and a good infrastructure. Military academies were built in every city, militaristic city states were given new designs of war machines to give us, and Warsaw built a few bombers and fighters to help improve our chances of survival if we were taken off guard. Krakow also constructed a great war council building (the Pentagon) to help our military keep pace with our ever improving technology.

Meanwhile, I was gifted a great engineer from one of our city states, so I decided to build the CN tower for fun. No real point to the wonder, but at this point I was teching along quite nicely, and saw no reason not to get it. The engineer building it uttered a great "eh, that looks nice" after the building was finished, and the building is generally regarded as one of our finest 50 accomplishments in the century.

Last World Congress
Somehow Suleiman managed to sneak ally one of my city states for a couple of turns, and had his turn to propose a resolution to the world congress. I was expecting the mad king to propose something silly like embargoing me, but get this, he ended up proposing... brace yourself now...

Spoiler :
Science Funding! That's right! The never proposed always hated proposal by all the computers universally. I didn't actually think he was mad when I suggested it before in an offhand comment, but he must be! I must have found a glitch in the game or something, or maybe he meant arts funding, but I was ok with this.


So, when the next world congress convened, science funding and the ISS project were passed. The world (Poland) celebrated the day in a vast celebration of the sciences and knowledge, and work on the ISS was started. This time, my cities were ready for the vast production needed to win one of these cooperative competitions, and when the station was finished in 1814:

Spoiler :


The symbol of cooperation was constructed with a Polish captain commanding a crew of English, Songhai, and Celtic peoples. The people of Poland were also taught of the impressive Moroccan contributions to the space ship, while the Carthaginian achievements were somehow left off the curriculum. Meanwhile, our public school students learned that the Polish captain and the Songhai engineer were the most valiant members of the crew by far, while the English and Celts just seemed to cause trouble no matter where they were.

That turn
Our focus on the ISS was holding back our scientific progress, but new breakthroughs were coming in like a wildfire in the year it was completed (3 bulbed scientists). Then, we had privatized plans to build our space ship to private companies, and they claimed they were behind schedule before, but when we gave them a little money (freedom tenant), suddenly the spaceship parts were fully finished and ready. The next turn, we launched our space ship and soared to the skies, ready to settle on the next world we find.
 
And now my game is done
Thanks everyone who viewed and commented on this thread. You not only inspired me to try (and keep trying) deity mode, but you've also made these last few games of civ really fun for me to play and write up. Now, if you see me do another thread here before December, make sure to yell at me, because I can not afford to play civ during school, because it will take up my life and ruin my grades. That said, I hope to come back eventually and do more threads to help me work on specific aspects of civ, mostly the tourism/cultural victory, and the domination/aggression aspect of this game.

Thoughts on the games, my play style, and on civ in general
First of all, I think internal trade routes are awesome now, and I'm going to be prioritizing internal naval trade routes over external naval trade routes from now on. By the end of this game I had the second, third, and fifth largest cities in the world, and these were also the fastest growing cities in the world.

Secondly, for the one stat to rule them all debate, I think production has become a bit more important in BNW because of trade routes. The game was balanced without these additional hammers that are absolutely critical to spend in every victory condition or gameplay style whatsoever. Meanwhile, if you aren't going for a cultural victory, I think great work culture buildings are basically negligible. Monuments are fantastic, but it's now in my opinion more efficient to get culture from city states and wonders early game, while completely ignoring everything past the monument. The production is just generally better spent elsewhere, and great writers and artists give pretty good cultural benefits even when there are no great works slots available.

Among stat importance, I think this is generally how I go. First there's the top tier I always want to get: Monument - food - production - science - gold
Late game, I think food diminishes in importance a little as a pop growth from 29 to 30 doesn't mean as much as from 2 to 3. Meanwhile, gold and science increase in importance in the late game, as those late game buildings are really powerful and dramatically improve each one.

Great work slots and tourism I haven't found myself wanting recently. Faith is situational, although it is more efficient to have city states produce faith and culture than to have cities do so. Happiness is also situational, as rush building a colosseum can be necessary, but a stadium hasn't been worth building in quite a while.

City States and Patronage
I've seen a lot of posts about how you never want to spend gold on city states and to do quests instead, but I've found that doing quests is never enough to get yourself allied with all the city states. I assumed before that on deity, it would be impossible to ally yourself with all the city states, but I've found that's not true at all. Here's my case for why Patronage is just as good a policy tree as Rationalism to complete, and not just to get consulates/protection.

1) 25% increase gold influence is amazing
I've heard so many complaints about this policy on the thread, but I get it almost every game. In many cases, this policy means +25% late game gold to me. Trying to ally all the city states without this policy is incredibly difficult, especially the way this policy works. Your 1000 gold gift to a city state might ordinarily leave you 5 influence short of being in an alliance with it, but this will leave you 10 influence ahead, and you'll get the alliance benefits. Every time I spend gold on city states (and I spend a lot of gold on city states), I'm very glad I have this policy. Likewise, people say that the +30% gold influence to city states piety policy is terrible, but I think it's probably one of the best reformation beliefs in the game. It may not fit completely as a reformation belief, as it has nothing to do with religion, but whatever, it's still amazing. Especially if you take this policy with it. You have to go through the terrible tree of piety to get these stacking bonuses, but if you do get it, city states are yours for the taking.

2) +25% science from allied city states is amazing
I've heard lots of people talk about how the rationalism opener is one of the best policies in the game. This generally gives me 2 or 3 times as much science as the rationalism opener after I've allied all the city states, depending how well my empire is doing. This is one of the best policies in the entire game.

3) Great people
So, after you've allied all the city states, what's the best way to do quests for them and keep them? Get great people! From city states! To keep up your influence with city states! And you get a great person! Great people are awesome! The +happiness per gifted luxury is a pretty nice policy too, and it is as good as any ideology policy.

So, yeah, these are my initial thoughts about the game. I hope you enjoyed this thread. I know I enjoyed writing it! :)
 
Great read and very funny :rotfl:. Congrats on the Deity win! Did you really buy all the spaceship parts?

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I bought 5 of the 6 parts. I had production, but I also had money, and money was faster when I was in the middle of the ISS project.
 
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I bought 5 of the 6 parts. I had production, but I also had money, and money was faster when I was in the middle of the ISS project.

I guess this has taught us a valuable lesson: Money solves everything!

That really did seem to be how you played, constantly bribing people. :lol:
 
I second Js_9001's :rotfl: This was both a great story and a very informative game. I was surprised by some of your end of game insights, especially regarding patronage, etc. I may have to question some of my old assumptions about which policies are effective.

Also, do you remember what order you took the various social policies in? I saw that you completed tradition near the beginning, but I wasn't sure if you took anything else before completing it + what you took after it.
 
Well, I was Poland, which means I could take an entire additional policy tree + from the standard civ. I first rushed tradition, then took patronage/consulates. After this, I used my Polish benefits to open commerce and exploration, and take the +3 production for costal cities policy before entering the renaissance era. +3 hammers per city is an interesting choice, and I don't know if it paid off. It's not a super production bonus, but it was decent and its effects lasted the entire game, so I doubt taking that one hurt me much even if there were better options.

When I entered the renaissance era, I quickly completed rationalism, using my free tech finisher to get radio to enter the modern era. As Poland, I could complete the tree quickly, and the benefits to rationalism stack, which is awesome. After this, I needed a number of city states quickly if I were to make freedom the world ideology, so I think I took the +25% gold influence as my policy for reaching the modern era (although I might have taken a specialist focused lvl 2 freedom policy before that, I don't remember). Either way, I took one lvl 2 freedom tenant before completing patronage, and then I worked on various freedom policies the rest of the game.
 
CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Way to stick with it. I highly recommend trying the Shoshone again. This time. RUSH!!! Go tradition. After you take a couple people out, you will have beast units and everyone will start attacking you. Jumping right into the cauldron of your territory defense bonus. Then counterattack. Its alot of fun.

The easiest Deity Domination victory is Wu.
 
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