Wow, Diety is Insane!

[AbsoluteZero]

My recent attempt at a Deity game ended in disaster.

I tried my usual rush technique that works consistently on Immortal ( tech to iron and build a swords / axe / spear army around 1000 bc and crush the nearest neighbor ).

The nearest neighbor was Jao II. His first 2 cities fell fairly quick, although I was surprised at how fast he got reinforcements. Seemed to just pop them out of nowhere. Then I declared peace because he was starting to overwhelm me with cats, at around 500 bc.

Then I go for the second round at around 150 bc. Jao despite being dropped way down in rank had macemen, war elephants and longbowmen, WTF? It's like my beatdown earlier had no effect. And man could he pump out units. Like every 2 turns his garrisons got a new recruit. Well needless to say I had no chance with my iron age army at that point.

So is the early rush just impossible on Deity at normal speed? I'm pretty good at it, I doubt if it could be done earlier then I did in that game.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Pretty much. Maybe with Praets or Quechas, but I think on Deity your priority is to settle cities to stake out land to settle. Building up for a rush is going to mean less land is grabbed and is going to hurt you long term.

 

[cabert]

I'm no deity player myself, but an early rush means usually going for the capital.
If you can't keep the cities, raze them, but don't go for a first blow, you won't make a second.
Each time i played deity I found myself a bit short in units.
So I suggest building 4 more units than you usually would.

What are the alternatives?
A- early rush
B- settling cities

Both are hard at deity.
A) you already noticed being hard.
B) is also hard because of the second settler of deity AIs. If you're not fast enough, you'll be left with 2 or 3 cities, and no way to expand.

So, you have to find opportunities (like rushing gandhi rather then joao, waiting for the AI to be already at war and dogpiling, going for defensive war first,...). The easiest way to find an opportunity is to chop all your forests, whip all your people away to have a bit more units.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Well I had 2 turn swordsman in my main producer.

In the second city I whipped and chopped axemen to keep up. With the occasional spearmen here and there.

I forgot how many troops I attacked with, but it had to be about 15 at least.

I surprise attacked so Jao didn't have any time to muster a huge force my way. I took the first city pretty quickly, although he had maybe a 4-5 troop garrison within 2 turns. Then the next city fell soon after. After that his territory was swarming with troops and catapults, so I had to sue for peace.

The capitol was fairly far away, and taking it would have been a bad idea, because I wouldn't be able to send reinforcements.

Razing the cities would be pointless, since it was way before feudalism ( for me ), and there would be nothing to gain except some gold and a really pissed off Jao. And he would quickly rebuild the cities.

This was one of those games where I was in a corner right next to a fast Rexer, so getting more then 3 cities might not have even been possible.

 

[georgjorge]

Haven't tried rushing at Deity so far, but maybe it would work better to do a "real early" rush only with Axemen? Teching Iron Working is very expensive, so it's not unusual that the AI will tech to Construction and further while you do that. 10 Axemen early on may do better than 20 Axes/Swords later, especially with someone like Joao who likes expanding and will build more Settlers and Workers than units in the early stages.

 

[Silu]

Best rushes on Deity:

- Early UU rushes with the likes of Quechuas, War Chariots or Immortals.
- Slightly slower rushes with a strong composition that is not quickly obsoleted, such as Elepult or Praetpult.

Everything else has drastically lower chances of success on Deity than on Immortal They key is a fast war with fast progression, to limit the crazy wartime unit production with the crazy bonuses the AIs have. With a BFC Copper Axes might be a more viable option, at least for choking.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I think that it's merely a matter of getting used to things and getting a feeling of what you can and can't do. Any big jump is likely to feel insane the first few times. I'm sure that if a Prince player played Immortal he would say that's insane as well.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

I think that it's merely a matter of getting used to things and getting a feeling of what you can and can't do. Any big jump is likely to feel insane the first few times. I'm sure that if a Prince player played Immortal he would say that's insane as well.

No, deity IS insane.

I just tried again with a cyrus immortal rush.

Rushed about 1700 bc with maybe 10 immortals. Not the fastest rush but it wasn't terrible.

I nearly crushed hammurabi. Got him down to one town. Pillaged all his iron and copper.

He stayed in his last town and popped out bowmen like crazy. Then I made my final attack with 20 immortals. Wiped out all but 2 of his bowmen, which were both badly wounded. My immortals were badly wounded but I still had about 10 of them and most were about to level.

Hamurabi would and SHOULD have been dead the next turn, BUT, somehow he got iron and popped a swordsman, which slaughtered my entire stack!

And yes I pillaged his all his iron. The only conclusion is another AI gave him some. WTF! He had nothing to trade for it, he was down to one town and no resources. He had water access so there was no way I could prevent this. Lame lame lame

I am now convinced the early rush is impossible on Diety at normal speed. Probably even at epic speed. Or maybe someone knows something I don't.

 

[kossin]

If the AI has metal... you're pretty much not going to succeed an early rush in BTS. It can be done however if all they have is archers/horses. Elepult works decently even if they hit Feudalism but better finish your attack before they hit Engineering or you'll just stall.

Great UUs permit pre-gunpowder wars but that's about it.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

If the AI has metal... you're pretty much not going to succeed an early rush in BTS. It can be done however if all they have is archers/horses. Elepult works decently even if they hit Feudalism but better finish your attack before they hit Engineering or you'll just stall.

Great UUs permit pre-gunpowder wars but that's about it.

It's pretty rare to catch the AI without either copper or iron in my experience. And even if they don't have it, they can just trade for it

I just hate waiting until gunpowder. I find that whole era boring

 

[kossin]

Try playing China/Japan then, might be your best bet for earlier warfare. (Yes, I am not including Rome here. Praetorians don't do so well against Maces/XBows which the AI gets fast.)

 

[goodolarchie]

I've found even with "successful" early rushes on diety, sometimes you lose better land in doing so while the other AI's box you in. If you can attack somebody along a peninsula or create a choke point that opens up new land then the rush is worth the risk (plus it's over quick if you fail)

 

[Metzi]

I'm not a diety player, far from it. But here's what you should do:

1) Try, try again.
2) Visit Dr Kossin (Dr = Daily round). They are a great insight for all levels but are mostly aimed at diety tacktics.
3) Can't decide what to do? Post the game. We can help/critique/swear/laugh at your gamplay to help you. Use Civ-Fanatics-Forum to your advantage.

Might I suggest playing without an early rush? It's very situational, I think (?), to use and you may be better off REX'ing instead. Good job getting to Diety

 

[georgjorge]

snip

I don't know how many cities you took with the Immortals, but leaving your enemy with only one city and having control of his territory seems pretty good for an early Deity rush already. It will leave you with a good amount of land to expand into (if you are isolated with him/can block off the other AIs, which is really the only time you should be rushing on this level), even if he makes enough Bowmen to get out of the choke at one point you'll be in a much stronger position once you make peace.

20 Immortals IS a lot though , good work getting them at 1700BC.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

I don't know how many cities you took with the Immortals, but leaving your enemy with only one city and having control of his territory seems pretty good for an early Deity rush already. It will leave you with a good amount of land to expand into (if you are isolated with him/can block off the other AIs, which is really the only time you should be rushing on this level), even if he makes enough Bowmen to get out of the choke at one point you'll be in a much stronger position once you make peace.

20 Immortals IS a lot though , good work getting them at 1700BC.

I didn't have 20 immortals at first, that's about how many I had at the last part.

I took 3 of his towns I think. Giving me 5 towns total. I razed one town because it was a tundra town and was crap.

I'm now trying to do the liberalism at 1 AD trick and failing hard ( best I can do is 500 AD with a philo leader ).

 

[cabert]

I didn't have 20 immortals at first, that's about how many I had at the last part.

I took 3 of his towns I think. Giving me 5 towns total. I razed one town because it was a tundra town and was crap.

I'm now trying to do the liberalism at 1 AD trick and failing hard ( best I can do is 500 AD with a philo leader ).

Had you started with 20 immortals, you would have made, I think.

 

[Infantry#14]

pillage the ai's metal and horse, then fortify axe on resources. The ai usually build tons of archers and just sit there in the city. Then wait for catapults.

 

[roguepro92]

is it me or does everyone else feel like the AIs all of a sudden get 10x harder to trade with you but they trade 10x more with each other??
once a week i go for diety and it seems the AIs always trade with each other before me and leave me with nothing to trade them with or is already ahead in tech ..<

 

[cabert]

is it me or does everyone else feel like the AIs all of a sudden get 10x harder to trade with you but they trade 10x more with each other??
once a week i go for diety and it seems the AIs always trade with each other before me and leave me with nothing to trade them with or is already ahead in tech ..<

there is a point somehow unspoken AFAIK
The AI values the tech you want to "sell" it for what it would cost it.
It also values the tech you want to "buy" from it for what it would cost you.
Thus on settler the tech you sell has a higher value than you paid and the one you buy a lesser value than the AI paid. You can trade writing (maybe together with mysticism) for iron working (provided anyone teched to IW before you did ).

And on the other end, you pay the AI a higher price than he paid the tech and you less to a lower price than you paid. You barely get IW for alphabet (provided you're fast enough to alphabet!).
In some way, you get better bargains exchanging beakers for money or money for beakers on deity (ie you get ripped off only in one direction )

 

[Kid R]

I've never won at deity but from the reports I've read over the years on here, rushing is virtually never the way to go. If beating deity was just a matter of efficient rushing everyone would be able to do it