What's it going to take to beat Deity?

joueur

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 30, 2015
Messages
2
Hi guys,

I've played Civ III on and off over the years ever since it came out, but I never seriously tried to improve my skills in a deliberate manner. I want to do things differently this time around. I remember sticking to the lower difficulty settings as a kid and never venturing out to try something out of my comfort zone. Basically I've never finished a game on a huge map or won according to culture or diplomacy for example. I don't know how to play other than being a warmonger, which gets dull after a while.

I want to fulfill my childhood goal of winning a game on Deity, however after poring through the forums I've realized that I have no idea how to play the game effectively. The tactics, tricks and general strategies displayed by the top players in the threads I've witnessed seem completely alien to me. It's like discovering a whole new game or at least a whole new way of thinking (the top Hall of Fame games with absurdly high scores, or Bamspeedy's Beyond Sid thread are some salient examples). I feel like I may have misunderstood the game mechanics in a fundamental way. I can beat Monarch with some luck but I am otherwise outclassed by anything higher. I don't know which advice to follow because there are so many different sources of information on the forum and elsewhere. Often the players contradict themselves. The posts are more than ten years old so obviously I can't expect any reply. I would have particularly liked to talk to Bamspeedy and the other heroes of old but they've disappeared forever. I wonder if there are any veterans still active that could serve as mentors.

How do I learn everything needed to beat Deity in the original Civ III? I need an in depth tutorial that explains every aspect or detail of micromanagement, the early game, how to trade techs, the late game, worker management, the whole deal, in order to fix bad habits accumulated over time. I've seens Cracker's opening plays site and the Babylonian settlers tutorial but I haven't been able to apply them in an actual game. I need people to explain the concepts as if I were mentally impaired.

I only need to beat Deity at least once so that my mind will feel at rest. I hope you guys understand ;)
 
My advice would be:
a) read everything in the War Academy
b) and then get more experience. (You can't jump from Regent to Deity in one step and expect to be successful on the first try... Play a couple of games on Monarch, then move up to Emperor, and when you beat Emperor consistently, try some Deity games. I think that is how everyone else has been doing it, including the old legends. ;))

A succession game is also a great way of learning.
 
Hi guys,

I've played Civ III on and off over the years ever since it came out, but I never seriously tried to improve my skills in a deliberate manner. I want to do things differently this time around. I remember sticking to the lower difficulty settings as a kid and never venturing out to try something out of my comfort zone. Basically I've never finished a game on a huge map or won according to culture or diplomacy for example. I don't know how to play other than being a warmonger, which gets dull after a while.

I know what you mean. I played Civ 1-3 on chieftan or regent for years. I would have 2 or 3 cities that would crank out maybe 10 or 15 units, and they'd just run through civilizations like a hot knife through butter. I thought the game was that easy. Then maybe a year ago I started upping the difficulty level, and man, did I get an awakening. It ain't so easy!

The thing that has made the biggest difference for me (and I'm still struggling to break into the upper difficulty levels, currently doing well on a demigod game) was to expand rapidly in the beginning. Just crank out settlers nonstop and expand your empire until it hits an ocean or another civ's border. That may not seem like as much fun at first.....But when your cities begin to get established and grow roots, its a lot of fun to crank out 20 units armies in a couple turns.

But it does take some practice! Read the War Academy articles, and read the forums. Be active in the discussions. Ask questions. When you get into the deeper strategic aspects of the game, its like a whole new game that you've never played before. I just started exploring this side of it, and I've been playing Civ (on and off) since the early 90s.

Have fun, and once you get over the first few horrible defeats, it gets really fun!
 
Your focus should be to get your cities to size 12 ASAP. Early you need to settle fast to have enough cities to be competitive. As your cities grow the amount of properly worked tiles must grow with it. So you need many workers. Getting the proper balance between settlers, workers, granaries and aqueducts is the first thing you need to learn. Once you have mastered this very basic lesson all other things become much more easy.

I should probably warn you that this every basic lesson might not by an easy lesson. Even under experts the proper way to go is disputed. You might have a look at this thread for C3C 1.22:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=545147
 
Your focus should be to get your cities to size 12 ASAP. Early you need to settle fast to have enough cities to be competitive. As your cities grow the amount of properly worked tiles must grow with it. So you need many workers. Getting the proper balance between settlers, workers, granaries and aqueducts is the first thing you need to learn.

Well, here we agree completely... ;)

BTW: one of the most eye-opening articles that I read when I began learning this game was: The Case For Food Read it several times! It was a real revelation to me.
 
I've played Civ III on and off over the years ever since it came out, but I never seriously tried to improve my skills in a deliberate manner. I want to do things differently this time around.
As others have already said, the best way to improve is simply to play above your current comfort level, preferably with feedback, e.g.:
  • Download and play an old Game of the Month (or two!) and compare your progress with the discussion threads (NB you'd have to dig back in the archives for Vanilla GoTMs though)
  • Start/join a 'Succession Game' (SG)
  • Or simply start a game with a specific goal in mind, post your progress, and ask for help here.
I don't know how to play other than being a warmonger, which gets dull after a while.
Although from the forums you'd get the distinct impression that warmongering is the only way to (be able to) win at higher levels, you only have to look at the Hall of Fame to see that all VCs are achievable, even at Sid level -- at least, provided the player knows what he's doing (and doesn't mind re-rolling until he gets a decent start)!

That said, warmongering is still probably the 'easiest' route to victory at high levels, since it's the simplest way to keep the AIs weakened and humble despite their production bonuses. At Deity on Vanilla/PtW (IIRC), everything -- food for growth, shields for units/ buildings/ GWonders, beakers for techs -- costs the AI ~60% of what it costs you, and they start with a lot of extra units, so they can swamp you pretty quickly, if you leave them alone for too long.

But woe betide you if you pursue a warmongering strat with the Persians/ Celts/ Zulus/ Iroquois next door, without also having Iron and/or Horses close at hand... :cry:
I want to fulfill my childhood goal of winning a game on Deity, however after poring through the forums I've realized that I have no idea how to play the game effectively. *snip* I feel like I may have misunderstood the game mechanics in a fundamental way. I can beat Monarch with some luck but I am otherwise outclassed by anything higher.
I felt like that too -- one of my major failings was building too many buildings in the early game, and not enough Workers/ military/ Settlers -- in that order. It's not so much a case of misunderstanding the game mechanics, as it is of not exploiting them effectively -- and using your human capacity for forward planning (of which the 'AI' has precisely none, despite any appearances to the contrary)
I don't know which advice to follow because there are so many different sources of information on the forum and elsewhere. Often the players contradict themselves.
This is partly because a lot of the earliest tactics and strategies got papered over by later patches, and then the expansion packs, but mostly it's because there is no single 'right' way to play Civ3.

If you roll random maps (as I usually do), overall strategies to some extent need to be developed based on what you roll, but you can also 'stack the deck' for a particular victory-condition by careful selection of map conditions, your civ, and your opponents, e.g. if you want to go for a Culture win, you might want to take the Babylonians and select non-religious/ -scientific civs as your opponents... (Although in Vanilla that would only leave you with the industrious, militaristic, expansionist, commercial opponents, who can build, buy or bully to get what they 'want' -- at least your Bowman-generated Vanilla-MGLs can build 1-turn-Wonders...)
I would have particularly liked to talk to Bamspeedy and the other heroes of old but they've disappeared forever. I wonder if there are any veterans still active that could serve as mentors.
Well, you've already attracted the attention of two of the best players still actively posting on CFC -- Justanick and Lanzelot. I learned a shedload about playing CivIII last year by participating in an Emperor-level Space Race SG which was mostly strategised by Lanzelot (see my sig -- we won :D ). Lanzelot's also currently documenting a Monarch-level 'Always War' solo game using the Republic government (see this thread), which you may (also?) find interesting/helpful.
How do I learn everything needed to beat Deity in the original Civ III? I need an in depth tutorial that explains every aspect or detail of micromanagement, the early game, how to trade techs, the late game, worker management, the whole deal, in order to fix bad habits accumulated over time.
How do you eat an elephant? One steak at a time! Same with Civ. By all means read everything in the War Academy (everything that applies to Vanilla, anyway), but don't expect to assimilate it all in one go/one game. Just try out 1 or 2 'new' strats/tactics at a time.

I used to play CivDOS, and got reasonably good at it -- winning at King level, at least on the Earth map. I discovered CFC in 2007, got Vanilla Civ in 2009, patched it a little later, and having become relatively comfortable at Monarch, then upgraded to Complete (=Conquests) early last year. Then I joined the SG, for assistance with moving up to Emp (which I hadn't dared on my own).

What I'm doing right now (again, see my sig) is to roll mostly-Random games (apart from difficulty and map size, which I've set at Small, Emperor), playing them for the first 100T (which is the most important section of the game -- get that right and the rest becomes easier), and logging all my major actions (city builds, worker assignments, warfare successes/failures). At that point, I stop to assess how I'm doing. If it looks like I can win (e.g. I have a solid core, at least an 'average' military compared to my nearest neighbours, and I'm not too far behind on research), I'll play it out. If I can win, great -- if not, I can always roll another.

So far I've won one (as the Dutch -- only in Conquests), am winning one (as the Aztecs), and have pretty much lost one (also as the Aztecs). Although in my defence, that last one started as a test game on my spanky new desktop-box, so it wasn't properly planned from the start, or documented, and was also mostly played before I'd (re)installed CivAssist -- a utility which I highly recommend for help with trading (also a weak part of my Civ3 game, because I never traded with the CivDOS AICivs, on principle!)...
I only need to beat Deity at least once so that my mind will feel at rest. I hope you guys understand ;)
Understand perfectly. I aim eventually to be able to move up to and beat DemiGod -- and maybe even Deity -- preferably sometime before Civ3 has its 20th anniversary...
 
That said, warmongering is still probably the 'easiest' route to victory at high levels, since it's the simplest way to keep the AIs weakened and humble despite their production bonuses. At Deity on Vanilla/PtW (IIRC), everything -- food for growth, shields for units/ buildings/ GWonders, beakers for techs -- costs the AI ~60% of what it costs you, and they start with a lot of extra units, so they can swamp you pretty quickly, if you leave them alone for too long.

One should not try to attack AI too early either. You sound a bit as if the longer you wait the worse things become for you. At least in C3C 1.22 it can be quite a reasonable strategy to not attack AI for quite some time. What is the proper timing depends a lot on circumstances. I would not like to general advise on that.

Something one needs to master at higher difficulty settings is to turn AIs against each other. That relativises their boni a lot.
 
Heh, I am surprised no one pointed you at this thread. From Emperor to Demigod is a smaller leap than the one you have in mind but I guarantee the lessons imparted to me on that thread will be relevant and valuable and they enabled me to win what is still my one and only DG game (after many reloads). Micro-management, city placement, army composition, weak-point strategy, use of military leaders, the central city ring, importance of workers, the tech race and much besides in a few pages of learned instruction. Best of luck! :)
 
Ha, sorry Walletta, I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, that thread was useful to me, too.
 
Thanks guys, I will delve into all this and maybe post an update if I get stuck along the way.
 
Any updates? I'm refining my demigod craft currently and looking to make the eventual jump to deity.


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