Daring Deity Civ5 Succession Game

[Defianc4]

One thing I will suggest is building a warrior relatively soon into this game, as the AI will otherwise psychopathically attack you right off the bat.

The key thing to beating Deity is expanding significantly at the start, while upkeeping a decent sized army in order to dissuade the AI from attacking until you want to fight.

Then you can devour them with your far superior combat skills. Also, don't give them open borders if your army is borderline mediocre, as they will be able to see your weaknesses and then declare war on you.

[sunrise089]

I second (or third, or whatever) the Ottomans request. Their trait is actually humorous, and winning with them will help prove the point about the ICS strat.

[alpaca]

Hey there, signing in as per your invitation

I would suggest a horsey rush - we need some army anyways to defend us at the start so might as well build a few more and whack an AI civ or two. I don't mind playing the Ottomans, it doesn't matter much with the broken tactical AI and the Janissary is actually a fairly solid unit.

I'd also go for an Artillery slingshot because that's by far the most dominant unit in its time, so we should get some libs running ASAP.

[uberfish]

I'll play but prefer not to play Persia because my current game is already doing that. Some lower tier civ is best if you really want to make a point. Like everyone else, I don't think I could stand ICSing on deity for more than 10 turns at a time.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

So who is the current roster:

Sulla
Alpaca
Uberfish
Luddite

???

[luddite]

Hey there, signing in as per your invitation

I would suggest a horsey rush - we need some army anyways to defend us at the start so might as well build a few more and whack an AI civ or two. I don't mind playing the Ottomans, it doesn't matter much with the broken tactical AI and the Janissary is actually a fairly solid unit.

I'd also go for an Artillery slingshot because that's by far the most dominant unit in its time, so we should get some libs running ASAP.

I kind of don't want to do the horsemen rush, just because horsemen are their own separate imbalance issue. I agree about the artillery slingshot though. If we go for catapults and swords early on, then that will start us off nicely down the path to artillery, and when we arrive there we can upgrade to elite artillery.

I think the key to an easy game is to identify the runaway civ, and go to war with them as soon as possible.

Oh and another question- what should our policy be on city states? Should we ally with all the maritime and culture CS for maximum power, or try and do it without them just to prove a point?

[luddite]

Just throwing in an idea, would Epic speed be more suitable for killing the large quantities of units? Or is that too much tedium?

That would definitely make war a lot easier, but then it takes twice as long to build your army in the first place, so I guess it's a wash.

[alpaca]

I kind of don't want to do the horsemen rush, just because horsemen are their own separate imbalance issue. I agree about the artillery slingshot though. If we go for catapults and swords early on, then that will start us off nicely down the path to artillery, and when we arrive there we can upgrade to elite artillery.

I think the key to an easy game is to identify the runaway civ, and go to war with them as soon as possible.

Oh and another question- what should our policy be on city states? Should we ally with all the maritime and culture CS for maximum power, or try and do it without them just to prove a point?

So is the artillery slingshot. If we want to stay away from "exploits" we shouldn't go for a deep GS-powered beeline. Swords & Stones work, too, but has to be played a lot more defensively. Works for me.

As for city states, we don't need more than one or two Maritime CS. In fact, allying one at the start is probably enough because you'll run into happiness trouble otherwise that slows horizontal growth (which is what we want to do after all).

[Sullla]

That gets us five then:

Sullla
luddite
SevenSpirits
alpaca
uberfish

In order of signups. It sounds like there is a consensus on wanting to use the Ottomans, so let's do that. As far as military tactics go, let's wait and see what the map offers before deciding on anything. I would prefer not to whack city states for free workers, but if there's a monster civ right on our doorstep, I'm not averse to attacking early with horses. Not allowing ourselves to lightbulb key military techs with Great Scientists also feels a little too much like overkill. We don't want to tie our hands too completely.

I will try to play the first 20 turns sometime today or tomorrow, and then create a thread over at CivFanatics. I'll add a link to it here whenever it goes up.

[luddite]

Yeah whenever you're playing against an AI there's a fine line between exploit and legitimate strategy, especially in a game with so many balance issues like this one.

If you start now do you think we'll be able to finish it before the patch comes out? It might be better to wait for that, since the last patch didn't have saved game compatability.