Would you be able to beat Diety if...

[The Great Apple]

So this goes out to all the people who have been beating Diety on a daily basis. Do you still think you could do it (standard size, standard speed, default pangea) if:

1) Horsemen were reduced to strength 10, -25% vs cities. (ie. still powerful because of move after attack and high speed, but not nearly so nasty)

2) AIs bid for city state allies more aggressively rather than sitting on stockpiles of 20,000 gold.

3) Maritime city state food output was halved, rounding up.

4) City trading was restricted to peace deals.

5) The AI would not buy strategic resources it didn't need them, and would not value luxuries highly once over +10 happiness. Maybe luxuries would be worth 50 gold instead of 300 gold at this stage.

6) The AI would not buy open borders for 50 gold unless it was near to you and your lands were in it's way. Maybe worth 5-10 gold normally, 50 if required? Or maybe just no more cash for open borders.

7) City states were given a free starting warrior (to protect first worker).


Also, which of these do you think would hurt you the most?

Basically, I've taken a large number of the Deity strategies which seem to be going around here and proposed some nerfs! While I understand that by doing this I'm taking away a lot of the human's advantages, but that's kind of the point.

And to answer my own question: no, I don't think I could, though I think I could still beat immortal. I think 5) would hurt me the most as the gold given in these deals really keeps things ticking along.

 

[r_rolo1]

As long as the AI has the tactical prowesses of a dead parrot as it is now, I can definitely still beat deity ( barring those unfortunate cases of someone agressive with a good ancient UU starting in the back door ). Their lack of finesse in this regard allows for 20:1 K : D ratios and not even deity AI can keep up with that...

But of the ones you pointed, probably the AI bribing CS with more inteligence would help a lot ... they might even get a diplo win from time to time

 

[lissenber]

I would beat it if it were Marathon. Not used to faster speeds and units become obsolete much too fast.

 

[norxposr]

In order to make deity reasonable, I've placed most of these restrictions on myself; however, the city-state thing obviously can't be. The AI has to do it, since I can't do their work for them. So my vote would be the city-state bidding idea.

With all these changes implemented, I probably couldn't beat deity because, in all honesty, I'm not that good (never beat deity in Civ IV, not once even with dream starts). The game still wouldn't be fun to me, because I would get beat by just overwhelming number of units which becomes slow and tedious. I'm not sure if I would lose the game or just lose interest. Either way I wouldn't win.

I've started to play Immortal, Small map, no city-states, can't declare war or take capitals if attacked, and the game is somewhat fun at this level. The small map and no city-state options are really only there to reduce in between turn time. Immortal keeps the number of units to a reasonable level.

 

[Celevin]

The problem with Deity is it feels like they are purposely going easy on you. I have had games where I have purposely been cheesy, but through the random luck, the Deity com plays very well and kicks my ass without me having a chance. If they decide to, they can bring a crazy number of units on you early before you've even really established yourself.

Some of my Deity games are laughably easy. Some are impossibly hard. Because of this, a lot of people who have tried have "beaten" Deity, but there's a difference between beating it and doing it consistently.

 

[r_rolo1]

The problem with Deity is it feels like they are purposely going easy on you. I have had games where I have purposely been cheesy, but through the random luck, the Deity com plays very well and kicks my ass without me having a chance. If they decide to, they can bring a crazy number of units on you early before you've even really established yourself.

Some of my Deity games are laughably easy. Some are impossibly hard. Because of this, a lot of people who have tried have "beaten" Deity, but there's a difference between beating it and doing it consistently.

I never seen the AI playing well on any level in civ V I already seen the AI, by pure luck, use the enourmous bonuses they have in Deity in a minimally coherent way to push me off board. Those are very diferent things

About deity being winnable conistently .... well , let's put it bluntly, if the highest level of a game can be won consistenly, you need to make the oponents harder or make a even more handicapped level, because that one is not performing as it should. Deity was not suposed to be winnable at all besides some chosen few, but it is being won by a lot of people with some kind of consistency and this without even having the chance of looking under the hood to see how the AI works. That put's it on the level of maybe BtS Emperor ( before people like DanF,ori and Dresden had made coherent chartings of how the AI acts in core domains, like war decs and such ).

On other words, if a lot of people is winning on deity ,consistenly or not, the devs messed up making the game in one way or another

 

[Unconquered Sun]

1) Horsemen were reduced to strength 10, -25% vs cities. (ie. still powerful because of move after attack and high speed, but not nearly so nasty)

It's doable without using horses at all.

2) AIs bid for city state allies more aggressively rather than sitting on stockpiles of 20,000 gold.

This will make diplo victory much harder, thumbs up.

3) Maritime city state food output was halved, rounding up.

I don't find maritime states to be that important. For instance, the Alex game had no maritime states on the starting continent at all.

4) City trading was restricted to peace deals.

Didn't use it, because I had no trouble keeping up with the AIs. I do believe it is broken as people say. Curiously, it was similarly broken/abusable at Civ III release. I guess the lesson didn't stick.

5) The AI would not buy strategic resources it didn't need them, and would not value luxuries highly once over +10 happiness. Maybe luxuries would be worth 50 gold instead of 300 gold at this stage.

Again, didn't need to use it.

6) The AI would not buy open borders for 50 gold unless it was near to you and your lands were in it's way. Maybe worth 5-10 gold normally, 50 if required? Or maybe just no more cash for open borders.

Open Borders are bugged, I don't sign them at all.

7) City states were given a free starting warrior (to protect first worker).

Will die on flatlands anyway. IMO the best penalty to stealing workers from city states is to have a % chance for eternal war even at the first steal.

 

[stii]

I think not being able to sell lux for 300 would be the big one. Others are nice but without the huge amount of extra money you would have to build horsemen and couldn't afford ten CS.

 

[Paeanblack]

So this goes out to all the people who have been beating Diety on a daily basis. Do you still think you could do it (standard size, standard speed, default pangea) if:

1) Horsemen were reduced to strength 10, -25% vs cities. (ie. still powerful because of move after attack and high speed, but not nearly so nasty)

2) AIs bid for city state allies more aggressively rather than sitting on stockpiles of 20,000 gold.

3) Maritime city state food output was halved, rounding up.

4) City trading was restricted to peace deals.

5) The AI would not buy strategic resources it didn't need them, and would not value luxuries highly once over +10 happiness. Maybe luxuries would be worth 50 gold instead of 300 gold at this stage.

6) The AI would not buy open borders for 50 gold unless it was near to you and your lands were in it's way. Maybe worth 5-10 gold normally, 50 if required? Or maybe just no more cash for open borders.

7) City states were given a free starting warrior (to protect first worker).


Also, which of these do you think would hurt you the most?

Basically, I've taken a large number of the Deity strategies which seem to be going around here and proposed some nerfs! While I understand that by doing this I'm taking away a lot of the human's advantages, but that's kind of the point.

And to answer my own question: no, I don't think I could, though I think I could still beat immortal. I think 5) would hurt me the most as the gold given in these deals really keeps things ticking along.

As long as I still get to use Wu, Gandhi, or Monty, then yes, consistent wins with those settings would not be that rough. Other Civs would be more difficult.

The reason I pick those three:
Wu: early GG, more GG, strong GG
Gandhi: The best shoot & scoot unit in the game
Aztec: early GG, best turtler against Deity AI

 

[Duckweed]

So this goes out to all the people who have been beating Diety on a daily basis. Do you still think you could do it (standard size, standard speed, default pangea) if:

1) Horsemen were reduced to strength 10, -25% vs cities. (ie. still powerful because of move after attack and high speed, but not nearly so nasty)

Horseman should be the dominant unit in open field as what it's in history. But reduced strength vs city is recommended. This does not affect much as there are other choice to defend against early DOW. Beeline to swordman will do the same job. Moreover, I don't recommend horseman rush your neighbor.

2) AIs bid for city state allies more aggressively rather than sitting on stockpiles of 20,000 gold.

I have never seen a deity AI has that amount of gold when I enter the medieval era, ~2000g is normal. Human player will focus on the patronage tree to take the benefit, how do you expect AI to do so and to be competitive?

3) Maritime city state food output was halved, rounding up.

This is never to be an issue, My empire will soon hit into unhappiness even I ally some of CS when I enter the medieval era, there are many other benefit from CS, the happiness resources, the science boost, the great people, and the military aid when you go to a war. The food is a just an average benefit as I see.

4) City trading was restricted to peace deals.

I never use this buggy feature.

5) The AI would not buy strategic resources it didn't need them, and would not value luxuries highly once over +10 happiness. Maybe luxuries would be worth 50 gold instead of 300 gold at this stage.

Why luxuries should be that cheap, 1 happiness resource = 5 extra citizens, which will yield more than 10g per turn for sure. Only friendly AIs will give you those gold, try to sell it to a hostile AI or someone consider you a target. However, my opinion is that resource trade should not involve cash directly, it's more reasonable to be gold per turn.

6) The AI would not buy open borders for 50 gold unless it was near to you and your lands were in it's way. Maybe worth 5-10 gold normally, 50 if required? Or maybe just no more cash for open borders.

I agree OB<->OB is more reasonable. Again, try to sell it to a hostile AI.

7) City states were given a free starting warrior (to protect first worker).

That's not a problem, I can steal a worker from an AI if I want and worker is much less important in CiV as the improvement gain is much weaker than civ4.

Also, which of these do you think would hurt you the most?

Basically, I've taken a large number of the Deity strategies which seem to be going around here and proposed some nerfs! While I understand that by doing this I'm taking away a lot of the human's advantages, but that's kind of the point.

And to answer my own question: no, I don't think I could, though I think I could still beat immortal. I think 5) would hurt me the most as the gold given in these deals really keeps things ticking along.

Overall, I guess most of those issues were questioning my strategy article. My answer is "Yes, I can still win without much trouble". The key point of my strategy is how to REXing in early strategy, defend yourself and beeline to Steel for 1st conquering.

 

[aimlessgun]

1) Horsemen, whatever, don't use them.

2) It would be great if the AI bid on city states. Would make it a bit harder.

3) I'm not sure if such a drastic Maritime nerf would be necessary if the AI was grabbing city states aggressively. Would make things harder, yes.

4) Don't use city trading. The restriction sounds reasonable.

5) I don't like this. Look, the AI on deity will ALWAYS have tons of happiness, no matter how stupidly large and sprawling their empire is. If they refuse to buy any of your resources because they are cheating, it goes from giving them bonuses to penalizing you, which is no fun.

It would also make the Arabs a completely terrible civ.

As for 'extra' strat resources, it should pay less/nothing for outdated resources (currently that threshold comes too late). And there should probably be some coding for how much it 'needs' more resources. But in theory unless their tech is beyond it, more strat resources are never 'useless' for them.

6) Doesn't matter much frankly. Pretty small amount of gold either way.

7) I don't think 1 warrior is going to protect their worker, frankly. Stealing a worker is not a prerequisite to success atm either.

Anyways, I think the changes would make it harder, and except for #5 would be ok changes to make, but the core problem will always be the bad military AI. They will do the right thing by accident sometimes and crush you, but 8 times out of 10 they cannot leverage their superior military.

 

[edcrane]

I agree with the attack penalty for horsemen and the AI bidding for CSs. I don't think maritime should be made weaker, though it would be reasonable to rescale the bonus so that comparably sized civs with different numbers of cities receive the same amount of food in total.

Another thing: the developers claim that the AI civs "want to win," but right now they don't seem to dislike losing. For example, when I build the UN or finish 2/3 of the Apollo project, the AI apparently has no reaction. This needs to be improved. I want to see much more aggressive bidding for CSs when the UN is built (i.e., even if the AI would ordinarily prefer to spend the cash on upgrading armies or infrastructure, the completion of the UN should change its priorities) and, if victory is imminent, invasions by civs from other continents.

 

[Martin Alvito]

As long as AI civs still let me steal unguarded workers, bravely found cities next to me but forget to defend them, and engage in unfocused research that lets me get a tech level or two ahead militarily, they will still lose with regularity.

Horses do need a nerf. However, that nerf won't be a panacea. Swords are a more costly way of getting the job done, but the job still gets completed. Six Swordsmen deployed before turn 60 are going to ruin someone's day. All you have to do is scout to figure out whose day they will most effectively wreck.

Even if you fix the combat AI, Rifles slaughter anything the AI puts on the ground before turn 130 or so, and still provide a hefty advantage until turn 150-175. The Babs can deploy in quantity starting at around turn 95. Playing normally with anyone else will yield a window that opens around turn 105-110.

The AI needs some serious work to manage endgame conditions properly, but as it stands it can't handle the midgame. As a result, if you survive to the midgame you should always have a winning endgame. It's just a question of which one you want to abuse right now.

 

[the streak]

Probably wouldn't be beatable with all those things implemented.

 

[Feanor73]

It would hardly change anything as long as AI isn't improved drastically (if it's possible)

 

[The Great Apple]

Overall, I guess most of those issues were questioning my strategy article. My answer is "Yes, I can still win without much trouble". The key point of my strategy is how to REXing in early strategy, defend yourself and beeline to Steel for 1st conquering.

Actually it wasn't deliberately. These are just things that I have seen suggested in various places when people ask "how do I play better".

This is never to be an issue, My empire will soon hit into unhappiness even I ally some of CS when I enter the medieval era, there are many other benefit from CS, the happiness resources, the science boost, the great people, and the military aid when you go to a war. The food is a just an average benefit as I see.

To me it's anything but. It's not so much about population, more about what each population point can produce. By using maritime city states you require fewer farms to be worked leading to much greater production and gold.

I have never seen a deity AI has that amount of gold when I enter the medieval era, ~2000g is normal. Human player will focus on the patronage tree to take the benefit, how do you expect AI to do so and to be competitive?

Depends how much you're ripping them off for OB/Lux/Strat resources. 2000 gold is still a good chunk of city state goodness.

Why luxuries should be that cheap, 1 happiness resource = 5 extra citizens, which will yield more than 10g per turn for sure. Only friendly AIs will give you those gold, try to sell it to a hostile AI or someone consider you a target. However, my opinion is that resource trade should not involve cash directly, it's more reasonable to be gold per turn.

While that is true, when I have 20 happiness I'm not really in the market for luxuries. Maybe I am when I'm at 5 happiness, but that's a big difference.

That's not a problem, I can steal a worker from an AI if I want and worker is much less important in CiV as the improvement gain is much weaker than civ4.

Ok, but we're at the stage where you almost don't actually have to build a worker initially as you can steal one and have it home by about the time you'd finish building one anyway. Sure two is better than one, but it makes the extra much less worth the production time.

 

[The Great Apple]

6) Doesn't matter much frankly. Pretty small amount of gold either way.

Standard map, 6 civs, standard speed => ~300 gold every 30 turns. 10 gold per turn. Not bad IMO. Ok you won't actually get this... maybe 7 GPT is more realistic, but still not bad!

 

[Udey1]

As long as the AI has the tactical prowesses of a dead parrot as it is now, I can definitely still beat deity ( barring those unfortunate cases of someone agressive with a good ancient UU starting in the back door ). Their lack of finesse in this regard allows for 20:1 K : D ratios and not even deity AI can keep up with that...

But of the ones you pointed, probably the AI bribing CS with more intelligence would help a lot ... they might even get a diplo win from time to time

Agreed. I have been not using these units/exploits/weaknesses on purpose as it is an easy and obvious fix. It will be in a MOD or a patch shortly and the forums will adopt it as a standard and then it won't be there.
I.E. Stealing the city state workers instead of building your own. Overselling open borders and selling cities to name a few of the many tricks.

Even with some currently overpowered bonuses fixed (like maritime states) the A.I. poor combat routines make war simple, barring that first early bust mentioned above

 

[lilnev]

I don't know if I could still beat Deity, with all those changes. But it sounds like fun to try. (Except for #5; the AI does still get a bonus from excess happiness, in the form of more frequent Golden Ages).

 

[pi-r8]

I avoid all of these anyway, except for selling the AIs my luxury resources (and I can't even do that after they inevitably declare war on me). It's still not a problem. The only danger is that I might die to an early attack, but if i can just survive the beginning then it's quite easy to overtake even deity AIs in the late game.

also it's pretty pathetic that there's so many different exploits we have to avoid to have a balanced game.