OCC win on Deity - the easy way

[hanZ]

We had a discussion in a german civ4 board if the roman praetorians are too strong or not. it took me about 45 minutes playtime to win a duel map on deity.

so here is the way for winning easily on deity:
0. if you dont have lots of forrest-tiles - start a new game.
1. build city, 1 warrior, 1 worker
2. do some research in bronze- and iron working, than the wheel
3. if you dont have iron near you, start a new map :P
4. lumber all forest, build mine and road
5. rush a second worker, lumber more forest-tiles
6. ai is still spawning cities insanely fast
7. rush barracks and than preatorians
8. send the first praetorians against the barbs - they should all be level 3 befor you attack. most likely you will have an barbcity near you. use it as training grounds - dont kill the city, so the new praetorians can earn their first merits :P
9. if you have 4-6 praetorians start to attack. steal some workers (kill more forest - even if its outside your territory), destroy roads and horse/iron access. kill anything that appears outside cities.
10. heal your first praetorian-wave (and rush more in your city!)
11. attack first city
12. kill the rest. if the ai doesnt wipes out your first wave, you have won.

enjoy. praetorians are uber.

[xxFlukexx]

Yeah, praetorians are pretty overpowered, I mean 8 str with 2 city attack promotions = unstoppable.

I consider War Chariots and the Cho-Ko-Nu and maybe Cossacks to be real close to overpowered. Especially compared to some UUs, Jaguar rofl at that piece of s. Haha they gave the Aggressive Aztec Civ the worst assault UU ever. I love it when he declares war on me and I just laugh when his army attacks my city, thanks for the free exp buddy.

[vmxa1]

All this rolling maps till you get the one you want, can't use just use the builder to get an easy win? If you have to get the perfect map, it is not easy.

[kimmygibler]

Well I wonder if you couldn't do the same thing with any civ in a duel scenario. Just using swordsmen or whatever.

The real challenge is a standard map Deity OCC launch. I tried it yesterday and was just building my first spaceship parts when another civ launched. That will be very difficult to on a standard map, with the standard number of opponants, and no map/rule editing. Whoever is first to do this will prove themselves to be a very good player.

[Volstag]

Re: OCC win on Deity - the easy way

0. if you dont have lots of forrest-tiles - start a new game..... 3. if you dont have iron near you, start a new map :P

Great strategy.

[ducki]

Re: Re: OCC win on Deity - the easy way

Originally posted by Volstag
Great strategy.

Also note, it's a duel map. So, does that mean you against 1(one) AI? AND you're rerolling to make sure you have Iron AND to be able to use the chop rush?

Why not (as mentioned before) just turn on worldbuilder, put Iron under your capitol and grant yourself some free shields/units?


I'm not trying to be snarky, but simply restarting to get the situation you want is not really using strategy. If you just want to be able to say you won a Diety Duel, that's cool, but you should try it without the restarts sometimes. See if you can adapt and improvise to overcome adversity. Then again, you did say "the easy way," although the worldbuilder may be even easier.

[Ellestar]

There is an even easier way without restarts and against several AIs on deity

Map: custom continents
Number of continents: one per team
Era: Future
Disable diplomacy, cultural, space etc. victories and you should win by score (same techs, almost no wonders, you should have a bigger population). To be 100% sure that you'll win, check only domination/conquest victories. AI will not kill you so eventually you'll win.

P.S. Well, i just wanted to win my 2nd Civ 4 game on deity so i decided that this way i'll win even without really knowing this game. And it seems that i was right. Of course, it's a cheap way, but all is fair in love and war. And besides i have only one try - either i win my 2nd game on a maximum difficulty or i lose So it's kinda fun to know if i guessed the starting choices and overall plan the right way.

[hanZ]

no, i've just wanted to say, that praertorians are too strong. that you can win against the ai on the same island with a simple praetorian rush is a bit strange. especially if you see, how extremely fast the ai develops its empire.

choprushing on deity with normal axemen and swordsmen wont work (i've tried it several times) . that was my point. try a game against the ai on a small duell map without praetorians - than lets talk again. on normal duel maps (ive them played a lot the last few days) theres always LOTS of forest and enough iron/copper/stone for both sides. a duel map was the fastest way to prove the stregth of the praets.

[Dominae]

You can accomplish much the same thing on those settings with plain old Horse Archers. Are they uber too?

The AI does not play Duel very well. And it's not always super-fast in hooking up resources, or building the appropriate counters.

In case it's not clear, what I'm saying is that, on the specified settings, you're underlining the AI weaknesses, not "proving" the Praetorian's strength. If Praetorians were really "uber" they would dominate MP, which they do not (although they're pretty good).

[hanZ]

i'll give the horse archers a try later on. maybe you are right. on the other hand, i guess its to early to say what strategies will work in the long run.

[lawofqr]

Lemme guess, if your rush fails, you reroll the game too.

[hanZ]

no, i loose very quick than :P but the rush never failed in 5 tries. i guess most of you never tried an onecitycontest game on deity. otherwise you would know, that there are startpositions not worth a try. as stated above, i just wanted to test the strength of the praets as quick as possible. i've never really expected a win on deity. but if you think its easy (even with a good starting position) and has nothing to do with the praetorians - than test it yourself - for example with gandhi or the germans. but hey, flaming after reading only half of the posts and understanding just a quarter is easy. discussing the topic itself - praets to strong or not, requires some rationality, and there seems to be a problem somewhere.

[Adderax]

Nah he's right, I just finished another game on monarch, and start position matter somewhat. If you are stuck in desserts, you bet your tail you won't be expanding anywhere. When I say the game is finished, I mean, it is 720AD, 2 computers gone, and another demolished. Playing continents, and I have twice the score of the next competitor. And I'm playing the chinese and nooo, I don't have cho-kos yet. But this game is kinda over imo. Probably gonna start over with another leader and see how that goes.

[xxFlukexx]

Dominae: I don't play MP so I don't know, but Praetorians aren't used much in MP? I find that weird as they are almost hands down the best UU. I mean if a stack with mixed praetorians, some with city attack and some with +str come, exactly how do you beat that? And of course that stack has a few spearman but doesn't need it, I mean a praetorian with 2 str upgrades is 9.6, what can beat that? Axeman cost 35 opposed to 40 for the preatorian so I don't see how you can beat an early preatorian attack.

[Aeson]

Early, when 4XP from Barracks is the norm, AGG civ's Axes beat Praetorians in cost effectiveness. That is because they have the anti-melee bonus, Combat I, and Shock, so 5.5 +75% vs 8 +10%. And Axes work with Copper or Iron. Praetorians don't get Shock right out of the gates until Vassalage or Theocracy, which aren't generally available for rushes. And require Iron.

Later, Maces or Crossbows eat Praetorians for lunch 1v1 (though Praets are still decent cost effectiveness) and Catapults are so important both ways that simply overloading Praetorians can really come back to haunt you. Plus Elephants and Longbows will be coming online around the time of those +XP Civics too. So there isn't a huge window of opportunity there against an equally skilled and resource blessed opponent.

Still, I agree Praetorians are one of the stronger UUs. A more flavorful bonus would have been preferable IMO. But I don't think they are particularly overpowered. They can roll over "trash" better than most anything else, but can fall flat (no Iron), or have some real difficulties (vs Copper or Iron AGG civs).

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If I was going to go with a rush vs 1 or 2 Deity AI, without the option to reroll until the right start came, it would be with the Aztecs. Can beat the first AI with Jaguars if they don't have Copper too early, fund research to Construction with the loot, and take down the second with Jags and Catapults. Without resource dependance, though unless you get some 5XP Jags quickly it can be hard to deal with Horses.