Strategy for winning at Diety/Marathon
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I played The Brotherhood (charismatic), though the civ with +trade might work as well.
Playing at deity means usually some form of militaristic strategy and that sort of applied here.
I played a Tiny map with all the other AI civs.
Macromanagement
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1. Never build any construction ships or colonies.
(You conquer cities and construction ships).
2. My capital city was my wealth city building only wealth improvement buildings after awhile.
3. All other cities were military cities - my strongest building the most expensive units, one dedicated squadron producer, etc.
4. Build starbases ASAP.
This requires researching the techs for construction ships and starbases, so that may take awhile at Marathon. Though i think i researched the tech for Destroyers first, as this was necessary for
5. Until you build starbases, always keep research such that you have positive income.
The starbases costs around 180 credits.
6. Build warp lanes (i.e roads) between your cities asap, for trade $$.
Military Strategy
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1. Build invasion ships at the start - one medic (which lasted me til game victory) and the other city attacker promotions, etc.
2. Initially use the invasion ships as scouts (don't bother researching the tech for them immediately nor ever building any scouts). Try to get as much loot as possible. (Credits, techs, promotions).
3. Conquer the one or two closest cities (or three). As soon as you have the techs for starbases (and hopfully built up the req. credits), build starbases (on asteroids if possible for defence bonus) to optimize access to resources.
(At marathon it can take 23 turns to produce a starbase, so start building them first, then the roads).
NOTE: this was the only time in the game that i switched to a build mode (and non military expansion). If i did war with the other civs, it was to hijack their construction ships and to prevent them from building starbases nearby. (It only takes the AI about 6 turns, which hardly seems fair :-(
4. Use your (well positioned) starbases to conduct your military attacks from.
They have heal II, as well as the ability to host up to 4 squadrons. Position bombers and fighters in your starbase and pummell them enemy!!
5. Take vassels where possible. Then build warp lanes and reap the trade benefits.
6. Most importantly, during the Starbase building phase, i built as many stealth ships as i could.
I used these throughout the game to destroy other construction ships, pillage warp lanes (all of them
and pillage improvements (for Credits and to disallow the AI civs from using resources). You really need to keep up with this in order to beat the civs at Deity.
Notes on my gameplay:
I won a Domination victory by 2340AD.
I had 3 vassels civs at the end.
Interestingly, i ended up being way behind on research - for most of the mid-late game, i was at around 20% or less.
