Deity strategies needed

[Alexander I]

I've dicided to take off at Deity level (why does civ3 call it Diety? Is it a spellings error?), since this is where you'll eventually want to end up and I assume that are significant differences between the lower level and the deity level as in Civ2. Damn it's hard! The AI builds at an incredible pace. By 250 BC they had already completed the Sistine Chapel, Leo's Workshop and J.S. Bach's Cathedral (what the...!!!), while I could only manage to built the Colossus. And have you seen how fast they expand. They have almost their entire continents colonized, while I have just about 4 or 5 cities! Then the AI decides to declare war on me for whatever reason and my reign will soon be over.

This is how I play: build city, built 2xwarrior, built settler, build settler/worker/warrior, build temple/wonder, etc.

I tend to expand as long as their is territory left, but on Deity level you'll soon be surrounded by the AI's.

I'm not quite sure about which research tree I should follow, Literacy or Monarchy?

Please help me out here. I'm doing someting horribly wrong but can't figure out what.

 

[liupang]

What's your map size? I think that really determine your strategy. Basically, because AI in deity expands SO FAST, in standard size or smaller , you are bounded to be bottled very early on and limited to less than 5 good city spot before 1500BC

So far, the only successful strategy I used on Deity standard is to go all the military. Foget settlers, build 1 more worker then barrack, then all military units. .It really helps to be a militaristic civ, too. Usually, I will have about 2 spearman, 4+ archers and several warriors knocking at enemy's door before 2000BC. That should be good enough to take over 1-2 cities, hence give you more cities to support more units. After that , you might have chance to build a settler or 2, build new cities in your new conquered terriority. By now, you should have acquired iron working. Grow your new cities and conquered cities a little bit(make peace with the guy you are fighting if you need), build barrack in each city, then go for a massive swordman/spearman/catapult ancient warfare.

This worked pretty well for me. Not only was I able to take 10 cities by 500BC, but I also get the ancient technologies and switched to monarch by that time. Best of all, massive combat produce leaders, and that's how you grab some all -important wonders---my sistine comes this way, also a forbidden palace in my new conquered world

The complain I about civ3 deity, so far is the lack of an alternative strategy. Maybe I have not find them yet, but I find the peaceful expand-science apporach can only work on map size larger than standard. And even that, it's much less successful than the sword way . Even on technology. (since in military way I get LOTS of techs by offering peace )

I am on playing a big size map, with 12 civs and myself being russian(expan, sci). I am around 1000BC and have 10 cities, but half of them are crappy ones or far away from capital. And AI seems not happy about me build a city in every possible border spot, and I am thinking they probably will crush me soon Well, I really don't like the peaceful way, but playing hardline war eagle all day long can get old

 

[PrinceOfDenver]

One of the things I hated about Civ 2 is that there were essentially two things, and only two, that made the game harder:

1. Much harder to keep the people happy
2. The AI Cheated.

Yes, cheated. Gave themselves advances that they could not possibly have gotten. Or consistently win outrageous battles (like a militia taking out tank after tank). I saw civilizations with staggering upkeeps getting by for NO gold each turn and doing things that would have my people burning my effigy in the street, and they never had uprisings.

Is this manner of cheating apparent in your games? Sounds that way if they have Theology back in the stone ages....

 

[Jezner]

Hi prince,
I read somewhere earlier on the board that basically when you are prince - you are on equal footing with the AI. After prince, the higher you go, the faster they produce things.

So at Monarch, they produce 80% faster than you do.

I think at deity they produce 60% faster whereas on chieftan they produce at 200% - twice as much.

Of course, these percentages are all relative.

Personally, I'm having a hard time on Chieftan.

Somewhere on this board, someone had a great diplomatic strategy. He put all his money into military and basically climbed the tech by wheeling and dealing technology with other civs.

To me, that sounds like the best shot.

 

[Neo Guderian]

Take a look at 'The Perfect Strategy' thread. I tried that strategy last night on diety and was amazed by the sucess....and of course some failure.