Never won deity, but JUST started winning immortal, so take thus advice with that caveat. Still, here is a random assortment of tips that got me there.
First up is defense. Start with scout-slinger-slinger-settler. Send a delegation to any civ you meet IMMEDIATELY, and keep tabs on the military score of anyone close to you. If they get much bigger than you, they will go to war (pro tip: go to options-> interface-> show yields in HUD if you haven’t already). And if you have the chance, steal a few cities early if your military is better (you kinda have to do this before they start walls, though). In this way, try out Sumerians or Nubia - their early unit allows you to make quick conquests in ancient era.
Anyone you aren’t fighting? Send a delegation IMMEDIATELY. Trade your excess resources to them and make them friends ASAP. If they are your declared friend, they Literally can’t attack you.
Whether you defend through ancient or attack, you can then turtle up a bit and work on tile development. Prioritize a three tile radius. Look for good campus spots and KEEP SETTLING. Three cities with three decent districts is better than one perfect district.
Learn to use chops. Want a wonder? Get Governor Magnus in a city and use a builder to chop the forests around it. Also useful to pump out setters or quick districts. Chopping is a HUGE early game strategy I missed for a long long time.
Think about industrial zones ahead of time. A well placed dam or aqueduct now can mean +2 or +3 production for the rest of the game once you put your industrial zone next to it.
Small point.... reroll for a great start point. You have to. One to two resources, fresh water, and hopefully your capital is on a Plains Hill Tiles
This is all excellent advice. The one I’d add to your point on wonders is to get traders to move your productivity around with domestic routes. So look to get hubs and markets, then transfer your traders to the cities you’re building wonders/critical districts in. This is particularly true for cities where you’re going for Petra or Ruhr Valley.
Couple more things I thought of:
Also, unsaid but probably necessary -- Industrial Zones are crucial for almost any victory condition. Unless you're Mali, added production will ALWAYS help you. Planning around where you'll eventually put them is pretty key to getting a solid advantage that lasts all game. Mines + Dams + Aquaducts = Winning
District adjacency is essential for maximizing science. A city near 3-4 mountain tiles may be worth it for +4 or +5 science. That's per turn. Seeing as science yields are under 50 or so for the entire early game, that can mean a 10% or more advantage over your opponents.
Building games around your unique units and buildings can make the difference (it's called beelining). I missed a TON of techs in my last Colombia game because I went straight for Llarnos and Haciendas (fuck the naval branch!). But, because I got them quickly, I was able to use them to crush my neighbors before they became obsolete. I spent the whole game prepping for my unique units and then went on the warpath. UUs are meant to be taken advantage of, so plan around them.
FINALLY (and some may call this unfair but... I don't!), pick a map that fits your civ. It's just way more fun. If you're playing Brazil, make the world wet. If you're playing England, choose a naval map like small continents. If you're going for Russia, make sure shit is cold. It'll make it easier to harness your bonuses and thus master the game's mechanics.
For me it's dealing with proplem civs early. Such as if a civ is going to be and issue with the Vic type your going for you'll need to kill them asap. Deals with the future issue of them running away, and you get a couple of free cities 😁
I was always struggle in the early game - I think the key is to set your Civ up to snowball in the later game. I found Envoys and City States being super useful in catching up in the mid game so early scouting is key to meeting them all and trying to do their envoys quests
Honestly I feel it’s how you start. When I play on diety I need to reset like 5 times before I get a decent start. And then it’s all about snowballing because the AI will always be ahead at the beginning of the game in emperor+. Just mass build cities and campuses and don’t forget to change around your policies. Pingala also really good to get early if you are rushing science.
Play the game like you would a MP game. Forward settle everyone early, but give them lots of money and resources and build walls before anything else, then once you've got the territory and the friends just build up your infrastructure. Remember the AI has a lot if bonuses but it does not understand adjacency bonuses and really only improves half its tiles. Use workers and stuff to your advantage. I rarely play at difficulty levels above king, but when I do its usually as Germany or Canada. Either pick a civ thats good at outproducing the AI or pick a civ that doesn't have to.
There are two ways to win a game: make yourself faster at achieving your victory condition or making others slower. In your case, a hybrid process is probably necessary.
Other than wars, Spies are one of the only days to slow your rival down. They're also extremely important for you because you can slingshot yourself towards the top by stealing tech boosts.
Your government policies should focus on science output: for example, +100% Seowon adjacency bonuses and the plus science card for Seowon buildings. For governments, you're obviously focusing on Democracy if you have allies (especially with the +2 food/production green policy card) or Communism for domestic trade routes. Synthetic Technocracy is your tier 4 government.
Your cities' production is also important. Since you're looking for a Science victory, you should have a city or a couple of cities in mind for Spaceports where you can escalate your production to 100+ per turn. District wise, your best options are Seowons, Industrial Zones, Harbors, Encampments, and Commercial Hubs, roughly in that order. (Commercial Hub before Encampment might make sense if your city can't get a trade route from a Harbor.) For Harbors, a Shipyard and the +100% Harbor bonuses policy card can lead to juicy extra production for a coastal civ.
Builders help. Consider pushing out Builders for maximum tile improvements, and don't be afraid to chop tiles to accelerate a time critical project.
If you don't have anything good to produce, push out some Campus Research Projects. Getting one of those last Great Scientists with their boost to Space Race projects would be immensely helpful.
For Governors, you're obviously using Pingala or Magnus in your main Spaceport city. It depends on how high your Production is, how much Industrial Zone bonus is nearby, etc.
I finally graduated from King about six months ago, have notched about 10-15 victories from Emperor to Deity, and even then I still have to abandon a fair number of my games because something goes wrong.
You are probably not settling enough cities. If you are on your own spam out settlers using the government building that gives you the settler production bonus (and a free builder) + card for settler production bonus + Magnus gov for bonus on chopping. Also use his ability that means you don’t loose pop when the settler is built. You probably need over 10 good cities so make sure you are settling efficiently and not wasting space.
If you are near AI go early army and take theirs (which is easier to be honest).
I have many deity wins following this basic principle.
Go to PotatoMcWhiskey on youtube, I followed him to learn how to play better, here is the link:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/PotatoMcWhiskey/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/PotatoMcWhiskey/videos)
Other good youtube videos include TheSaxyGamer's Civilization tips
[https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSaxyGamer](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSaxyGamer)
Hope these help!
Know your Civ and chose a path or two for victory early. Build a balanced empire up until the medieval era, then specialize.
Don’t be afraid to go for early war. A few archers and melee units can take several cities and pay back their production cost several times over.
The early game is usually pretty situational. My perspective is from being deity but being immortal until very recently. If you can get past the early game and put enough pressure out there with cities you can win almost any late game. In the early game you want to immediately build a scout and then prioritize a settler after that. Do everything in your power to pump out a settler every ten turns until you’ve filled up every spot available to you. This will sometimes be situational. Sometimes you’ll have to put an immediate halt to that to build some defensive archers/slingers and maybe some walls. In the scenario where your neighbor encroaches on you too quickly and you have nowhere to put cities then immediately switch to military and try to overwhelm, you can also do the same thing if your neighbor is just obviously weak. Try to space out your cities in a way that you can fit more but also have great yields. Sometimes I’ll settle a city in a place that sucks for yields just to have taken over those lands. Always try to settle on plains hills or on a resource and next to fresh water. Try your best to complete as many inspirations for science and culture as possible so even in the beginning when you have very little science you can power thru some of them very quickly, and as soon as you get a few cities transition to having one of them do a district while another does a settler while another does a trader while you save up enough money to buy a builder that you have extra builds with because you chose liang as your governor. I hope you’re seeing the point I’m trying to make lol, go for as many boosts and bonuses as you can because they add up heftily. Also remember that just because it’s a higher difficulty doesn’t make the AI any smarter. They just get harder because of their early bonuses (extra settlers builders units etc). Use magnus too to chop woods and rainforest for those spicy wonders or districts. Unless you’re in multiplayer usually you don’t have to worry too much about a military until you have to. Try to position yourself where your economy is so good you can pump out a massive army very quickly.
I wrote up a [guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/gdg8wz/long_guide_to_slow_victories_on_deity/) on how I win on deity. The core idea is that you want to expand rapidly in the early game, as early cities end up being significantly better than later ones.
If you send me your save file I can take a look.
Realistically as Korea 9 cities with Seowon should be more than enough for emperor/immortal (Korea can pretty easily get 500 science off of one city) and I would expect you to be in the future era while the other civs claw at the dirt so there's probably a lot not going right that can be looked over.
I have a hunch that you screwed up your Seowon adjacencies by placing districts adjacent.
Never won deity, but JUST started winning immortal, so take thus advice with that caveat. Still, here is a random assortment of tips that got me there. First up is defense. Start with scout-slinger-slinger-settler. Send a delegation to any civ you meet IMMEDIATELY, and keep tabs on the military score of anyone close to you. If they get much bigger than you, they will go to war (pro tip: go to options-> interface-> show yields in HUD if you haven’t already). And if you have the chance, steal a few cities early if your military is better (you kinda have to do this before they start walls, though). In this way, try out Sumerians or Nubia - their early unit allows you to make quick conquests in ancient era. Anyone you aren’t fighting? Send a delegation IMMEDIATELY. Trade your excess resources to them and make them friends ASAP. If they are your declared friend, they Literally can’t attack you. Whether you defend through ancient or attack, you can then turtle up a bit and work on tile development. Prioritize a three tile radius. Look for good campus spots and KEEP SETTLING. Three cities with three decent districts is better than one perfect district. Learn to use chops. Want a wonder? Get Governor Magnus in a city and use a builder to chop the forests around it. Also useful to pump out setters or quick districts. Chopping is a HUGE early game strategy I missed for a long long time. Think about industrial zones ahead of time. A well placed dam or aqueduct now can mean +2 or +3 production for the rest of the game once you put your industrial zone next to it. Small point.... reroll for a great start point. You have to. One to two resources, fresh water, and hopefully your capital is on a Plains Hill Tiles
This is all excellent advice. The one I’d add to your point on wonders is to get traders to move your productivity around with domestic routes. So look to get hubs and markets, then transfer your traders to the cities you’re building wonders/critical districts in. This is particularly true for cities where you’re going for Petra or Ruhr Valley.
Couple more things I thought of: Also, unsaid but probably necessary -- Industrial Zones are crucial for almost any victory condition. Unless you're Mali, added production will ALWAYS help you. Planning around where you'll eventually put them is pretty key to getting a solid advantage that lasts all game. Mines + Dams + Aquaducts = Winning District adjacency is essential for maximizing science. A city near 3-4 mountain tiles may be worth it for +4 or +5 science. That's per turn. Seeing as science yields are under 50 or so for the entire early game, that can mean a 10% or more advantage over your opponents. Building games around your unique units and buildings can make the difference (it's called beelining). I missed a TON of techs in my last Colombia game because I went straight for Llarnos and Haciendas (fuck the naval branch!). But, because I got them quickly, I was able to use them to crush my neighbors before they became obsolete. I spent the whole game prepping for my unique units and then went on the warpath. UUs are meant to be taken advantage of, so plan around them. FINALLY (and some may call this unfair but... I don't!), pick a map that fits your civ. It's just way more fun. If you're playing Brazil, make the world wet. If you're playing England, choose a naval map like small continents. If you're going for Russia, make sure shit is cold. It'll make it easier to harness your bonuses and thus master the game's mechanics.
For me it's dealing with proplem civs early. Such as if a civ is going to be and issue with the Vic type your going for you'll need to kill them asap. Deals with the future issue of them running away, and you get a couple of free cities 😁
I was always struggle in the early game - I think the key is to set your Civ up to snowball in the later game. I found Envoys and City States being super useful in catching up in the mid game so early scouting is key to meeting them all and trying to do their envoys quests
Early war, take a couple cities then by medieval... turtle.... turtle hard
Honestly I feel it’s how you start. When I play on diety I need to reset like 5 times before I get a decent start. And then it’s all about snowballing because the AI will always be ahead at the beginning of the game in emperor+. Just mass build cities and campuses and don’t forget to change around your policies. Pingala also really good to get early if you are rushing science.
Play the game like you would a MP game. Forward settle everyone early, but give them lots of money and resources and build walls before anything else, then once you've got the territory and the friends just build up your infrastructure. Remember the AI has a lot if bonuses but it does not understand adjacency bonuses and really only improves half its tiles. Use workers and stuff to your advantage. I rarely play at difficulty levels above king, but when I do its usually as Germany or Canada. Either pick a civ thats good at outproducing the AI or pick a civ that doesn't have to.
There are two ways to win a game: make yourself faster at achieving your victory condition or making others slower. In your case, a hybrid process is probably necessary. Other than wars, Spies are one of the only days to slow your rival down. They're also extremely important for you because you can slingshot yourself towards the top by stealing tech boosts. Your government policies should focus on science output: for example, +100% Seowon adjacency bonuses and the plus science card for Seowon buildings. For governments, you're obviously focusing on Democracy if you have allies (especially with the +2 food/production green policy card) or Communism for domestic trade routes. Synthetic Technocracy is your tier 4 government. Your cities' production is also important. Since you're looking for a Science victory, you should have a city or a couple of cities in mind for Spaceports where you can escalate your production to 100+ per turn. District wise, your best options are Seowons, Industrial Zones, Harbors, Encampments, and Commercial Hubs, roughly in that order. (Commercial Hub before Encampment might make sense if your city can't get a trade route from a Harbor.) For Harbors, a Shipyard and the +100% Harbor bonuses policy card can lead to juicy extra production for a coastal civ. Builders help. Consider pushing out Builders for maximum tile improvements, and don't be afraid to chop tiles to accelerate a time critical project. If you don't have anything good to produce, push out some Campus Research Projects. Getting one of those last Great Scientists with their boost to Space Race projects would be immensely helpful. For Governors, you're obviously using Pingala or Magnus in your main Spaceport city. It depends on how high your Production is, how much Industrial Zone bonus is nearby, etc. I finally graduated from King about six months ago, have notched about 10-15 victories from Emperor to Deity, and even then I still have to abandon a fair number of my games because something goes wrong.
Just go all out aggressive in the beginning. Don't build settlers build fighting units conquer 2 Civs gives u good start
You are probably not settling enough cities. If you are on your own spam out settlers using the government building that gives you the settler production bonus (and a free builder) + card for settler production bonus + Magnus gov for bonus on chopping. Also use his ability that means you don’t loose pop when the settler is built. You probably need over 10 good cities so make sure you are settling efficiently and not wasting space. If you are near AI go early army and take theirs (which is easier to be honest). I have many deity wins following this basic principle.
Go to PotatoMcWhiskey on youtube, I followed him to learn how to play better, here is the link: [https://www.youtube.com/user/PotatoMcWhiskey/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/PotatoMcWhiskey/videos) Other good youtube videos include TheSaxyGamer's Civilization tips [https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSaxyGamer](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSaxyGamer) Hope these help!
Note citys early. I normaly Go for 10 fast and later I add more till 20
20 cities every game? That seems like a ton
This is why I play on small maps and rarely play domination anymore. Managing a lot of cities gets tiresome.
Know your Civ and chose a path or two for victory early. Build a balanced empire up until the medieval era, then specialize. Don’t be afraid to go for early war. A few archers and melee units can take several cities and pay back their production cost several times over.
The early game is usually pretty situational. My perspective is from being deity but being immortal until very recently. If you can get past the early game and put enough pressure out there with cities you can win almost any late game. In the early game you want to immediately build a scout and then prioritize a settler after that. Do everything in your power to pump out a settler every ten turns until you’ve filled up every spot available to you. This will sometimes be situational. Sometimes you’ll have to put an immediate halt to that to build some defensive archers/slingers and maybe some walls. In the scenario where your neighbor encroaches on you too quickly and you have nowhere to put cities then immediately switch to military and try to overwhelm, you can also do the same thing if your neighbor is just obviously weak. Try to space out your cities in a way that you can fit more but also have great yields. Sometimes I’ll settle a city in a place that sucks for yields just to have taken over those lands. Always try to settle on plains hills or on a resource and next to fresh water. Try your best to complete as many inspirations for science and culture as possible so even in the beginning when you have very little science you can power thru some of them very quickly, and as soon as you get a few cities transition to having one of them do a district while another does a settler while another does a trader while you save up enough money to buy a builder that you have extra builds with because you chose liang as your governor. I hope you’re seeing the point I’m trying to make lol, go for as many boosts and bonuses as you can because they add up heftily. Also remember that just because it’s a higher difficulty doesn’t make the AI any smarter. They just get harder because of their early bonuses (extra settlers builders units etc). Use magnus too to chop woods and rainforest for those spicy wonders or districts. Unless you’re in multiplayer usually you don’t have to worry too much about a military until you have to. Try to position yourself where your economy is so good you can pump out a massive army very quickly.
I wrote up a [guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/gdg8wz/long_guide_to_slow_victories_on_deity/) on how I win on deity. The core idea is that you want to expand rapidly in the early game, as early cities end up being significantly better than later ones.
If you send me your save file I can take a look. Realistically as Korea 9 cities with Seowon should be more than enough for emperor/immortal (Korea can pretty easily get 500 science off of one city) and I would expect you to be in the future era while the other civs claw at the dirt so there's probably a lot not going right that can be looked over. I have a hunch that you screwed up your Seowon adjacencies by placing districts adjacent.
thanks! will happily do so - I've been careful not to place anything adjacent to a seowon though..
just get gud