Johan511
Old Schooler
MrSparkle submitted a post asking the question of how to handle the happiness in deity. I started answering his question when I realized that all my CivFan Brothers and Sisters really need the knowledge of how to handle this monster that is believed to be the hardest level of Civ2.
First of all, Im pretty new here at CivFan, but not at all new to the Game of Civ2, so I hope you all have plenty of posts about my comments and I will answer any questions about this strategy, But Ill also tell you it works.
I'm about to give you a real lesson in Playing deity, In fact I'm not only going to tell you how to play against the computer, but Im going to tell you how to play deity against another player, I could even go into playing without Dip, and Wonders, but for this lesson well keep them since many players use these features. First off let me say that if you and your partner agree on Dipping cities your doing a great injustice to yourself and the History of the world, and I will believe that until some can show me in the history books where a city was subverted by a monetary means. I am a History Major at the University of Florida State and have a lot of experience in the subject yet Ive never come across such a tactic. There are certain parts of the game when playing human beings that your can agree to take out, and that is the beauty of Civ2! So I am going to give this lesson with City Buying, but with the other features of the Diplomat.
Now only one last thing remains before the main meat of the lesson Im going to include playing with huts, because the is an obvious advantage for a players to play with them, but herein enters the great game of pure luck, and when you enter luck into a game, you lose some of the luster of Skill, but Luck is something that has existed in History and always will. Being at the right place at the right time is a factor of fate, and partly determines who reins the land. (A solemn not here, we on the CivFan ladder have been playing without huts, and I believe that is wonderful, because ladders should reveal skill, just as fun* games with huts should be just that, Fun, later on Ill post a different strategy with the use of huts.) As a last little comment, I may break this lesson up into three or four different segments, but I promise to post them all, the reason is that this may take awhile because Im going to run you through the entire deity game as I have known and loved it.
For me playing Deity come as a second nature, I started on it, and never played anything less, and Im very glad I did, for I learned the hardest way, but found myself reading the Civ2 manual over and over to find each little tip that could possibly help in my journey to the top, and those first 100 games where fabulous. It took a hellava long time for me to even get to gunpowder, but I learned to perfection in each step, so here I will begin the lesson.
Happiness and Trade are the keys to deity. But how do you keep your citizens happy and play all the other aspects of the game? The answer lies in the wonderful truths of diversity. You start with two settlers on deity, this is not on accident, it happens because the computer has a better advantage on deity with two settlers that you do. Reason? It only takes 1/3 the production to build the same thing you do. But when your playing a human opponent the stakes are even. So if you have a hut near you get it before you build a city, Im sure you find this advice in many places because if youre lucky enough to get a unit you and the immediate advantage. (Note: Theres always a trade of between getting huts and choosing to leave them, although I never pass up a hut, if you on track to a wonder you could be set back by a tech that you dont really need.) IF you get that horseman or archer explore at no cost for more huts in the mean time find good spaces for your two settlers. You dont want to wait more that 2-3 turns for the first city and 3-5 turns for the second though, so try to split visible land that you can see. Make sure to set your tax rate to 60 science and 20 tax right at the beginning because sometimes in multiplayer the tax rate will be 50-30 for no reason I can comprehend.
The first thing you want to build in your cities is a warrior, theyre only 10 shields and theyll keep your cities happy though level two. Sacrifice a little food and trade to get two extra warriors to explore with if you didnt get a unit on the first couple turns. Then worry about trade, because you want to get to Monarchy as ASAP. But if you dont have Bronze working: GET IT FIRST. This is important in both single and multiplayer games, because phalanxes are pure defense and will keep your cities nice and cozy after you build those first warriors.
Now I have a little matrix that I use to determine what I should do but they differ between multiplayer and single player games, and because I am more interested in the Multiplayer game I will stick to that matrix. Plus if you go by the multiplayer matrix you may not achieve as high a score but you WILL always win a single player game, unless you are on a small island, (which is a whole different post, or the computer boxes you in, I will cover boxes in the next post of Deity!)
A multiplayer game always depends on the style of the player you are up against, and even if you are up against a brand new player your can always access the players style over time. They are basically four different styles of play. (1) There are those that are very militaristic, these players will sacrifice trade which ultimately garners knowledge and money for production of units to obtain the fast attack, these players are easier to deal with because while playing double production you can simply build your cities on trees, hills or mountains, these in combination with phalanxes are nearly impossible to conquer until they obtain mathematics and a good road system, which can easily be snipped off by horsemen and crusaders which you will have very early if not first. (2) The Diplomat and technologist, this type of player prefers to play archipelago maps because its easier to get a base civilization established, keep his cities small until republic and build lots of libraries and marketplaces, along with happiness wonders, these types of players, if they get theyre way with the map are a major threat to you, never play an archipelago map by consent if you can help it, because you will always lose the Hanging Gardens and maybe even the Chapel to this player, two wonders that are an absolute necessity in the game of Deity. If you lose them there is still hope, but you will not dominate, but more on the wonders later. (3) The explorer- the explorer looks for huts and likes big land masses, to search out his enemies and discover techs and cities by hut discovery, This opponent can be potent, be his tech tree will be scattered and he will likely lose many of the important wonders to others. (4) The forth and most deadly opponent is diverse strategist: these players know the tech tree by heart, they can search for huts for free cities and units but will never over compensate for their tech concerns, They will find other opponents cities and build cities beyond huts to save them for times when they badly need a tech or unit. They now the most important wonders to build, gaining pottery right before or after monarchy. A happy citizen in each city gives them a bonus to the three units used as government happiness bonus, and allows there nation to grow to 20-35 cities before happiness runs rampant. To be this foe you have to have some experience, some I call the second initiative.
After youve build your first five or six cities maybe even discovering a few from huts, and have monarchy you must head for philosophy. Youll need writing, literacy, and mysticism. Writing gives you Diplomats youll want to build one on your 2nd and 3rd cites after you have a warrior and phalanx in both. As for you capital city, build a warrior, phalanx, settler to expand, phalanx, settler to irrigate and build roads, another phalanx, the a temple, then straight to Hanging Gardens. If you manage your production youll never have unhappiness in your city until late in the construction of the Gardens, and if you watch it happiness text closely you can have a entertainer there before it goes unhappy this saves you a turn and is well worth the watch. Make sure you squeeze every bit off trade you can out surrounding squares, because it is your biggest gainer in science, production is not that important after you start on the Gardens because your other cities are going to do your dirty work for you
For your second city build a warrior to explore, warrior for happiness, settler for expansion (remember every time you build a settler you reduce your city size by one therefore offsetting unhappiness), phalanx for happiness, diplomat for exploration, settler for limited road and irrigation, then expansion, and another phalanx for happiness, a temple, by this time you should have Trade to build caravans, you want to discover currency with the free advance philosophy gives you and then research trade. After this your only two techs away from the best happiness wonder in the game Michelangelos Chapel, (note if you find other techs from huts that dont fit the scenario its ok, just keep on the track, if you get the horseback riding or polytheism, which are common to get out of the track your even closer to your goal, other common techs include map making and seafaring, which are good if your find yourself on an island, even the wheel is good because its headed toward the Workshop. Dont worry about Libraries or marketplaces at this point because your going to get that extra science and money from build new cites, and roads.
Your third city should follow the pattern of the second but youll find it will develop a bit slower, but thats all apart of expansion, what were are trying to do is build an exponentiation of cities, roads, and units, that follow the pattern ultimately building caravans. This technique makes you bigger while also keeping your happiness high and expenditures at a minimum. After your cities build a few caravans, allow them a grainy, library, or marketplace, depending on their strengths and weakens within the land that they encompass. You can use that all that money to dip units that wonder into your territory or build an insta-military to defend your cities.
If you lose the gardens to a player dont fret, just make sure you know when a city is going to level up and when its going to be unhappy, you may not be able to get over level four, or at some point even use your first citizen, just keep build caravans and your sure to get the Chapel. If you lose it too your going to be hurting, and if you lose it, dont keep heading for it, sure there is SJ Bachs Cathedral but, go ahead a make it a point to get temples and build the Oracle, it provides some happiness, plus you can immediately start researching for the Works Shop.
WARNING: Leave the republic alone, if you find that you have lost all hope on the Chapel and the Workshop you have to get the Statue of Liberty, it is as fairly early Wonder, and Economics, combined with Adams Smith Trading Company will allow you to pump up your luxury rate to get you by until you can get the Statue, and go to Communism.
Democracy can be wonderful if you have some happiness wonders collected in your bag, best-case scenario you can accumulate the Gardens and the Chapel and go straight for the Workshop and onto the Statue. Note: If Ive past up some wonders and your wondering about, forget it, its not really important to the win, you can collect those wonders when you start taking everyone elses cites.=)
Ok Im going to leave you there for this Post but when I get up Ill start writing on the second half of the game, military tactics, and anything that Ive left out in this post that Ive promised to tell you
For now Happy Civing, And I hope youve learned something.
-JOHAN-
First of all, Im pretty new here at CivFan, but not at all new to the Game of Civ2, so I hope you all have plenty of posts about my comments and I will answer any questions about this strategy, But Ill also tell you it works.
I'm about to give you a real lesson in Playing deity, In fact I'm not only going to tell you how to play against the computer, but Im going to tell you how to play deity against another player, I could even go into playing without Dip, and Wonders, but for this lesson well keep them since many players use these features. First off let me say that if you and your partner agree on Dipping cities your doing a great injustice to yourself and the History of the world, and I will believe that until some can show me in the history books where a city was subverted by a monetary means. I am a History Major at the University of Florida State and have a lot of experience in the subject yet Ive never come across such a tactic. There are certain parts of the game when playing human beings that your can agree to take out, and that is the beauty of Civ2! So I am going to give this lesson with City Buying, but with the other features of the Diplomat.
Now only one last thing remains before the main meat of the lesson Im going to include playing with huts, because the is an obvious advantage for a players to play with them, but herein enters the great game of pure luck, and when you enter luck into a game, you lose some of the luster of Skill, but Luck is something that has existed in History and always will. Being at the right place at the right time is a factor of fate, and partly determines who reins the land. (A solemn not here, we on the CivFan ladder have been playing without huts, and I believe that is wonderful, because ladders should reveal skill, just as fun* games with huts should be just that, Fun, later on Ill post a different strategy with the use of huts.) As a last little comment, I may break this lesson up into three or four different segments, but I promise to post them all, the reason is that this may take awhile because Im going to run you through the entire deity game as I have known and loved it.
For me playing Deity come as a second nature, I started on it, and never played anything less, and Im very glad I did, for I learned the hardest way, but found myself reading the Civ2 manual over and over to find each little tip that could possibly help in my journey to the top, and those first 100 games where fabulous. It took a hellava long time for me to even get to gunpowder, but I learned to perfection in each step, so here I will begin the lesson.
Happiness and Trade are the keys to deity. But how do you keep your citizens happy and play all the other aspects of the game? The answer lies in the wonderful truths of diversity. You start with two settlers on deity, this is not on accident, it happens because the computer has a better advantage on deity with two settlers that you do. Reason? It only takes 1/3 the production to build the same thing you do. But when your playing a human opponent the stakes are even. So if you have a hut near you get it before you build a city, Im sure you find this advice in many places because if youre lucky enough to get a unit you and the immediate advantage. (Note: Theres always a trade of between getting huts and choosing to leave them, although I never pass up a hut, if you on track to a wonder you could be set back by a tech that you dont really need.) IF you get that horseman or archer explore at no cost for more huts in the mean time find good spaces for your two settlers. You dont want to wait more that 2-3 turns for the first city and 3-5 turns for the second though, so try to split visible land that you can see. Make sure to set your tax rate to 60 science and 20 tax right at the beginning because sometimes in multiplayer the tax rate will be 50-30 for no reason I can comprehend.
The first thing you want to build in your cities is a warrior, theyre only 10 shields and theyll keep your cities happy though level two. Sacrifice a little food and trade to get two extra warriors to explore with if you didnt get a unit on the first couple turns. Then worry about trade, because you want to get to Monarchy as ASAP. But if you dont have Bronze working: GET IT FIRST. This is important in both single and multiplayer games, because phalanxes are pure defense and will keep your cities nice and cozy after you build those first warriors.
Now I have a little matrix that I use to determine what I should do but they differ between multiplayer and single player games, and because I am more interested in the Multiplayer game I will stick to that matrix. Plus if you go by the multiplayer matrix you may not achieve as high a score but you WILL always win a single player game, unless you are on a small island, (which is a whole different post, or the computer boxes you in, I will cover boxes in the next post of Deity!)
A multiplayer game always depends on the style of the player you are up against, and even if you are up against a brand new player your can always access the players style over time. They are basically four different styles of play. (1) There are those that are very militaristic, these players will sacrifice trade which ultimately garners knowledge and money for production of units to obtain the fast attack, these players are easier to deal with because while playing double production you can simply build your cities on trees, hills or mountains, these in combination with phalanxes are nearly impossible to conquer until they obtain mathematics and a good road system, which can easily be snipped off by horsemen and crusaders which you will have very early if not first. (2) The Diplomat and technologist, this type of player prefers to play archipelago maps because its easier to get a base civilization established, keep his cities small until republic and build lots of libraries and marketplaces, along with happiness wonders, these types of players, if they get theyre way with the map are a major threat to you, never play an archipelago map by consent if you can help it, because you will always lose the Hanging Gardens and maybe even the Chapel to this player, two wonders that are an absolute necessity in the game of Deity. If you lose them there is still hope, but you will not dominate, but more on the wonders later. (3) The explorer- the explorer looks for huts and likes big land masses, to search out his enemies and discover techs and cities by hut discovery, This opponent can be potent, be his tech tree will be scattered and he will likely lose many of the important wonders to others. (4) The forth and most deadly opponent is diverse strategist: these players know the tech tree by heart, they can search for huts for free cities and units but will never over compensate for their tech concerns, They will find other opponents cities and build cities beyond huts to save them for times when they badly need a tech or unit. They now the most important wonders to build, gaining pottery right before or after monarchy. A happy citizen in each city gives them a bonus to the three units used as government happiness bonus, and allows there nation to grow to 20-35 cities before happiness runs rampant. To be this foe you have to have some experience, some I call the second initiative.
After youve build your first five or six cities maybe even discovering a few from huts, and have monarchy you must head for philosophy. Youll need writing, literacy, and mysticism. Writing gives you Diplomats youll want to build one on your 2nd and 3rd cites after you have a warrior and phalanx in both. As for you capital city, build a warrior, phalanx, settler to expand, phalanx, settler to irrigate and build roads, another phalanx, the a temple, then straight to Hanging Gardens. If you manage your production youll never have unhappiness in your city until late in the construction of the Gardens, and if you watch it happiness text closely you can have a entertainer there before it goes unhappy this saves you a turn and is well worth the watch. Make sure you squeeze every bit off trade you can out surrounding squares, because it is your biggest gainer in science, production is not that important after you start on the Gardens because your other cities are going to do your dirty work for you
For your second city build a warrior to explore, warrior for happiness, settler for expansion (remember every time you build a settler you reduce your city size by one therefore offsetting unhappiness), phalanx for happiness, diplomat for exploration, settler for limited road and irrigation, then expansion, and another phalanx for happiness, a temple, by this time you should have Trade to build caravans, you want to discover currency with the free advance philosophy gives you and then research trade. After this your only two techs away from the best happiness wonder in the game Michelangelos Chapel, (note if you find other techs from huts that dont fit the scenario its ok, just keep on the track, if you get the horseback riding or polytheism, which are common to get out of the track your even closer to your goal, other common techs include map making and seafaring, which are good if your find yourself on an island, even the wheel is good because its headed toward the Workshop. Dont worry about Libraries or marketplaces at this point because your going to get that extra science and money from build new cites, and roads.
Your third city should follow the pattern of the second but youll find it will develop a bit slower, but thats all apart of expansion, what were are trying to do is build an exponentiation of cities, roads, and units, that follow the pattern ultimately building caravans. This technique makes you bigger while also keeping your happiness high and expenditures at a minimum. After your cities build a few caravans, allow them a grainy, library, or marketplace, depending on their strengths and weakens within the land that they encompass. You can use that all that money to dip units that wonder into your territory or build an insta-military to defend your cities.
If you lose the gardens to a player dont fret, just make sure you know when a city is going to level up and when its going to be unhappy, you may not be able to get over level four, or at some point even use your first citizen, just keep build caravans and your sure to get the Chapel. If you lose it too your going to be hurting, and if you lose it, dont keep heading for it, sure there is SJ Bachs Cathedral but, go ahead a make it a point to get temples and build the Oracle, it provides some happiness, plus you can immediately start researching for the Works Shop.
WARNING: Leave the republic alone, if you find that you have lost all hope on the Chapel and the Workshop you have to get the Statue of Liberty, it is as fairly early Wonder, and Economics, combined with Adams Smith Trading Company will allow you to pump up your luxury rate to get you by until you can get the Statue, and go to Communism.
Democracy can be wonderful if you have some happiness wonders collected in your bag, best-case scenario you can accumulate the Gardens and the Chapel and go straight for the Workshop and onto the Statue. Note: If Ive past up some wonders and your wondering about, forget it, its not really important to the win, you can collect those wonders when you start taking everyone elses cites.=)
Ok Im going to leave you there for this Post but when I get up Ill start writing on the second half of the game, military tactics, and anything that Ive left out in this post that Ive promised to tell you
For now Happy Civing, And I hope youve learned something.
-JOHAN-
