Won my second Deity game, here's tips.

[xcaine]

Small Pangea, Quick pace, Quick combat, that's all I use.

If marathon really is so much easier like Infiltrator suggests, I'm looking forward to my next game.

 

[Godclone]

Well when you outlined your strat you said epic/marathon. Which gives the human opponent an edge. If I were to look at the way you try to make xcaine come off as a cheater, one could just as easily call you a cheater because you choose to have an easier time with the AI by making the game slower.

Those are game settings you can use in multiplayer as well, and how is slower game making the game easier ? The AI production/science/gold and happiness bonus scale with that speed also . Also the 2 further civilizations always are superpowers due to slower game (they have like 5 cities by the time i have 2, and they snowball).

You can not regenerate map or reload game in multiplayer, that's the difference .

@ xcaine

Thanks for the challenge i am going to play it as soon as i get home from work , If you want to play the map settings i gave you, do it without restarts or reloading, that will put your strategy to the test ( and by that i mean the stuff you said that did not include restart/reloading ) . I don't necessarily want screens from you, but to be able to asses the difficulty difference correctly , it would make sense to play it without exploiting . (he is dumb enough as it is ) .

 

[Infiltrator]

The slower it is, the easier is for whatever army you have to be more useful over extended periods of time. On normal speed, it's almost sure that at least one AI will be an era in front of you even if you beeline steel.

The 2nd game I beat on deity, I had no iron anywhere near me while hiawatha settled on my closest luxury. By the time I declared war (2 archers/3 warriors) he had 4 cities while I was still pumping out archers/warriors.

I only tried marathon once and I closed it down before I won, wasn't even close to what I'm used to at normal speed.

 

[Godclone]

The slower it is, the easier is for whatever army you have to be more useful over extended periods of time. On normal speed, it's almost sure that at least one AI will be an era in front of you even if you beeline steel.

The 2nd game I beat on deity, I had no iron anywhere near me while hiawatha settled on my closest luxury. By the time I declared war (2 archers/3 warriors) he had 4 cities while I was still pumping out archers/warriors.

I only tried marathon once and I closed it down before I won, wasn't even close to what I'm used to at normal speed.

Did you play duel ? Marathon gets ridiculous only if playing very small maps, because you set up 2 extremes in map settings . It is meant to be played on huge maps, Standard at worst . Marathon on small maps its just as silly as playing quick game on largest map .

 

[Infiltrator]

On my 2nd deity game yes, on the Marathon one, no, it was small pangaea and horsmen were ridiculous since they could be viable for much more than they typically are.

 

[Godclone]

Play Marathon on huge map like its meant to be played . Then come and tell me Marathon is human advantage . Which is the size i played . Will play his map settings to test if my strategy is viable regardless of map setting .

 

[Infiltrator]

Well it may be harder, but the point I was trying to make is, if I played both Marathon and Normal on a Huge map, again it would be easier on marathon since I would be able to mop up more AIs with the same units.

That said, I only played one large map ever, and never huge. Even though my specs are far better than recommended, memory leaks on large were quite annoying.

 

[Airey]

unlike Civ IV, the map size doesn't give AI as much advantage
- AI's setting rate is not going to be vastly faster on huge map vs normal because it doesn't give them added tech bonus

huge map are adv to human because it's more likely to put the human's starting spots further than the AI. Thus lowering the chance of >10 turn DOWs.

huge map give human more opportunity to settle luxury spots and/or more CS to get luxuries/food from, because Deity AI don't take them out 30 turns in.

the only thing limiting the AI is tech pace, that's why many ppl thinks marathon are easier, because playing huge allows human to tech faster, build less military needed to be safe from early DOWs, war when human get tech advantage like rifles vs horseman.

another thing different that are adv to the human:
1. hex tiles (faster moving military units)
2. quality of units increase power rating more than quantity (allows time for human to research)

while the above two is the same in both normal and marathon speeds,
given how bad the AI is at warring, these two points can be exploited further on marathon speed.

People have to appreciate OPs effort, spending the time and writing all that.
While reloading on fail wonder is not everyone's cup of tea, this forum is where ideas are exchanged and new ideas will come out of old ones...so just be nice

 

[HailoArrows]

Guys... Godclone already said he plays at King difficulty. Arguing with him about map settings is pointless.

 

[stii]

Pretty clear he is just trolling.

 

[Godclone]

Guys... Godclone already said he plays at King difficulty. Arguing with him about map settings is pointless.

Can you quote me on that ? No , you can't because no matter how you read Deity it will never transform into king .

Regarding map size, large map is AI bonus because of his happiness bonus the warring AI will snowball into a superpower able to maintain x number of cities more than you and out tech/out produce you by a vast ammount . And if you want to play economic war on deity large maps , you are doing it wrong . The AI advantages snowball and you will never catch up . One AI almost always gobbles the other AI and snowballs into a superpower only to overwhelm you .

Regarding your map settings i found 2 things . By the time my second warrior gets to my closest AI his city strength is so high i cant scratch it with 5 archers and 2 warriors, but he can't kill any of my units regardless of how many units he throws at him .

So i will adapt my strategy around catapults since without them it is unrealistic expecting to capture any cities . Beeline iron working and settle on iron resource, if not available on capital, building meanwhile barracks, armory and national wonder for unit xp , making catapults and upgrading warriors to swordsmen before attacking .

Because the quick speed is unrealistic regarding warfare , the main reason i play standard or slower speeds is that until you build and get any units to an enemy they are so far behind technologically their irrelevant vs cities , even if you can hold off his army in a good position .
The fact that a strategy needs to be adapted to the map settings is perfectly fine, its part of the things that make it a strategy . Besides its mostly jumping to the point you were in slower speeds by the time you were on your 3rd AI war .

Unlike cheating -> restarting, reloading , and abusing ******** AI trade, of GPT, resources /turn while declaring war or accepting ridiculous peace treaties . Which is the OP answer to "everything" making his strategy a cheating guide rather than actual strategy .

P.S. Playing any game on nothing but the higher difficulty setting is a waste of time, because most things you learn in lower difficulties is bad gameplay on higher .

 

[ohioastronomy]

You invest a lot of hours in a Civ game - getting a decent map is just basic common sense and lets you test out a particular strategy. To claim that this is cheating is name-calling and doesn't mark you as serious, at all. At higher difficulty levels the game can simply pose impossible problems.

It is common understanding, however, that once you start a game you play it through regardless of the random number generator. Go to the hall of fame section, for example, and you'll see that the approach I described has a long history in this game.

 

[Udey1]

First order of business: Stonehenge. If someome beats you to it, restart. It is extremely important in early game.

I got this far and then I realized it wasn't a Deity strategy thread. Please re-label your thread as "restart your way to victory, just like life"

 

[Martin Alvito]

So i will adapt my strategy around catapults since without them it is unrealistic expecting to capture any cities . Beeline iron working and settle on iron resource, if not available on capital, building meanwhile barracks, armory and national wonder for unit xp , making catapults and upgrading warriors to swordsmen before attacking .

I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about here. A few Horses decimate cities on Deity. They have the advantage of not requiring melee support, but the serious disadvantage of a slow upgrade path with a finite upper limit. If you can kill the defenders, a few Horse attacks along a single pathway in a single turn will flip the desired city.

The main risk you run in a Horse swarm is running into a juggernaut AI that has already spammed the map full of units by the time you reach it. If an AI reaches the productive threshold where its output makes units as fast as you can kill them, conquest becomes futile. Being able to quickly upgrade your existing melee to early Rifles via a GS and Rationalism can sometimes be enough to keep the conquest machine rolling and break the big bad AI. If that fails, there's always the option of a suicide attack on the big bad AI's capital after you kill off everyone else.

Unlike cheating -> restarting, reloading , and abusing ******** AI trade, of GPT, resources /turn while declaring war or accepting ridiculous peace treaties . Which is the OP answer to "everything" making his strategy a cheating guide rather than actual strategy .

Abusing ******** AI unit usage is no different from abusing ******** AI trade. Either way, you're taking advantage of the AI's inability to make quality decisions (which is the entire reason it has absurd advantages in the first place).

People are on about items like trade is because fixes are relatively easy to implement. Fixing the AI's inability to make war would be a much more challenging undertaking.

 

[pi-r8]

I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about here. A few Horses decimate cities on Deity. They have the advantage of not requiring melee support, but the serious disadvantage of a slow upgrade path with a finite upper limit. If you can kill the defenders, a few Horse attacks along a single pathway in a single turn will flip the desired city.

The main risk you run in a Horse swarm is running into a juggernaut AI that has already spammed the map full of units by the time you reach it. If an AI reaches the productive threshold where its output makes units as fast as you can kill them, conquest becomes futile. Being able to quickly upgrade your existing melee to early Rifles via a GS and Rationalism can sometimes be enough to keep the conquest machine rolling and break the big bad AI. If that fails, there's always the option of a suicide attack on the big bad AI's capital after you kill off everyone else.

I know exactly what you mean, I've run into this problem several times. It's worst on continents, of course, because you can only conquer your own continent with horsemen, and by the time you get to the other continent some warmonger AI has filled it all up with his cities. I don't think rifles are really good enough on their own though- it seems like the biggest AIs will also tech riflemen pretty fast (since size= tech rate in this game). The only midgame unit that seems powerful enough to break through a runaway AI like that is artillery, which is fantastic.

 

[Godclone]

i got this far and then i realized it wasn't a deity strategy thread. Please re-label your thread as "restart your way to victory, just like life"

...+1

 

[Infiltrator]

I never built stonehenge myself. It could be useful sure, but I had no problems without it.

Also, when using horsemen, just evade spears and go directly for the city. Once you have it, either raze it or use its defenses against the said spears in combination with cavalry.

 

[xcaine]

Tried marathon for an hour and it was among the most boring things I've ever done in my life. Sorry. I like my games and my life fast paced.

 

[Realyn]

After Immortal got too easy and I was able to consistently win, I tried and failed Deity about 10 times. Now I got it.

Played as China. Small Pangea, Quick pace. Restarted a few times to get a decent starting point. I aim for domination victory.

I so stopped reading here. Great stuff, a small map and reloading .Try to win a huge map without reloading, THEN you can call "i´ve beat deity"

 

[xcaine]

Hey, is it also wrong that I restarted my game on a new map after I got killed? Or should've I just stayed "dead" and uninstalled the game? You guys crack me up.