Won my first diety game - some observations

[Stringer1313]

I've never considered myself a hardcore gamer and was always intimidated by people who say they regularly beat diety. I also assumed that to beat diety you have to minmax, which I don't have the patience for.

Now I finally won my first Diety game -- without minmaxing at all. Granted, I won with Zulus, and played the most aggressive military game I could, which is always the easiest path to victory. And I generally had a lot of fun up until about 20 turns before the end, at which point I was eliminating Civs just to see their defeat cinematic.

Some observations from playing Diety, and suggested fixes. I won't add to the copious conversation about bad AI generally b/c I don't think it's that productive, and I'll try to be more targeted.

- I don't think the AI knows when to play offense or defense. At one point, I declared war then held back so that the AI could inevitably feed their units one-by-one into my buzzsaw of city/encampment/ranged units. Once I killed off 80% of their army just by hanging back, it became incredibly easy to move in and steamroll. I think the AI should be programmed to know when they are outnumbered, and to hang back and play defense. If an entire war passes without the human player venturing into AI territory b/c the AI is amassing defensive units, thats a "victory" for the AI.

- Gosh I really hope GS allows the entire world to gang up on you as soon as you start snowballing. I steamrolled literally 30 different cities without a single emergency being declared against me. The risk of an emergency needs to increase greatly for every city you conquer while you are in first place.

- Many have already suggested this but I hope GS really introduces some new/interesting empire management / internal challenges that come up when you get too big. I never had to worry about amenities once during my steamroll spree. Seems like war weariness should be strengthened, and/or unit maintenance costs increased (or at least increased dramatically once units leave your territory) -- anything that requires you to pay more attention to your domestic situation

- Occupied cities should exert little to no loyalty at all. It seems weird that once you conquer a big city, that big city suddenly pressures other cities into joining your civ after you have brutalized them. Cities in occupied status shouldn't exert any loyalty pressure at all, which should help slow down steamrolling.

- I don't think I agree with others who say that the human player should lose X% of Diety games. I don't have a problem with humans winning even most of the time, but the process of winning has to be INTERESTING. The internal empire management challenges should spring up to keep the lategame fresh.

I'm gonna see if i can beat Diety by playing peacefully next time.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

- Gosh I really hope GS allows the entire world to gang up on you as soon as you start snowballing. I steamrolled literally 30 different cities without a single emergency being declared against me. The risk of an emergency needs to increase greatly for every city you conquer while you are in first place.

Congratulations. I had been away from wargaming for 35 years or so and returned to it by buying Civ 6 after watching an old friend's livestream. I was a happy emperor player myself until last May when I joined this board. Everyone seemed to be talking about deity this and deity that, mix/max, efficiency and finish times. It seemed that one didn't really have much to say in certain quarters until they'd at least beat the game on deity. With that being said, I think you might be adding fuel to the proverbial fire here with the EMERGENCY idea. The more emergencies are declared against you, the more free gold you'll accrue, and the faster you'll steamroll.

For what it's worth, I think they have the variables adjusted correctly relative to the way I like to play. Then again, I like steamrolling the AI on deity more than I enjoy peaceful play @ lower levels. Peaceful play on deity just stresses me out too much for my liking , which is the same reason I don't multiplayer.
Again, congrats .

 

[Sykes179]

The emergencies are poor from all angles. Whether it's the free gold problem (why does the civ that was the cause of the emergency recieve anything, win or lose?), not knowing who is joining the emergency or not knowing what youre being asked to do before joining. I suppose this is their first iteration so it's understandable they weren't spot on buyt it has to be better next time.

There has to be some mechanism that punuishes blatant warmongering. Other than a huge negative in the relationship and a grumpy face. Conversely, if youre the victim of a blatant warmongering attack then you cant be overly punished for fighting it off and rolling up cities of your own in a counter attack.

I agree with a lot the OP says. Taking a city and then immiditaely exerting loyalty pressure and launch ranged attacks seems odd. Unit costs could increase further from home and perhaps combat effectiveness decrease to take into account long supply lines etc.