Diety Expansion

[alexander dumas]

I'm now playing my second diety game. My first one started me out in the middle of a large jungle and I ended up seeing infantry walk by before I even had my cities connected. I did learn a bit about tech trading before I got bored with only having 10-12 cities on a large map.

My second game has a much better starting point, but I've had some trouble trying to settle out my end of the peninsuela. I have about 14 cities so far and I can't decide whether I should still close-build (four tiles b/w cities) or expand. I'm still woefully behind in techs and the other civs have started to encroach with some cities in places I haven't reached with my settlers.

I'd like some input about city placement beyond the core as well as civ choice for beginner diety players.

Thanks

 

[Sullla]

Without more details it's kind of hard to provide advice. I'd really need a savegame to give concrete details, so here's some more general advice. The most important thing is not to give up in a Deity game - ever. Though it will look like you have no chance to win, the truth of the matter is that the AI is horrible at endgame strategies (it doesn't know how to pursue one victory) and the other civs almost always end up in long, protracted wars that serve no purpose and reduce them into Communism. Though all hope seems lost, keep on fighting, scratching, and clawing your way through the game, and you just may win. You had better be good at conducting diplomacy too!

I would also direct you both to my Civ3 website
http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/games.html
where I have written detailed reports of two Deity wins and to the location of a Deity succession game I'm currently playing
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28481
where several excellent players are giving commentary on how to thrive at that level.

 

[jmansell02]

Sullla,

I have hade enourmous trouble with too many cities causing huge problems with corruption. This makes those cities virtually useless. For example in one pretty easy game I had built about 100 cities easily and was still expanding fast (It was huge pangea). However most of my cities were useless. When I played Civ 2 I never encountered this problem and so I have 2 questions:

1. In your "GOTM8: Otto Throws His Weight Around!" you had a huge no of cities and yet you didn't seem to have any problems, why?

2. Do you have a soulution for me or is it just a problem you have to live with?

_______________
jmansell02

Victory is life!

 

[Arathorn]

I'm not Sulla, but the purpose of outlying cities is many-fold:

- Resource/luxury gathering
- Unit support (if in Monarchy/Despotism)
- Space the AI won't settle

Unless you're milking score (which I beleve GOTM8 is doing, which is a whole 'nuther can of worms), or in the abomination of an anti-government which is Communism (just say NO to being red), having extra cities shouldn't hurt you at all.

The corruption in a city is determined by its distance from the capital (FP) in two ways. One is pure distance. The second is how many cities are closer to the capital (FP) than the city under consideration.

At a certain point, cities will never produce more than one shield and one commerce point. It's critical to not waste gold rushing improvements in these cities (unless you're finishing off a domination victory, in which case it's moot). Doing so will drain not only your cash reserve but also your income, as improvements cost money.

Just let far-off "colonies" be self-sufficient, producing one gold to maintain the unit defending it. And, remember, easy come, easy go. These cities can absorb some of an AI attack and not cost you much of anything....

There's more to it, but basically you just use your cores as your production centers and live with/ignore the corruption in outliers. Of course, courthouses and police stations (and a well-placed FP) can help bring a few more cities into the cores.

Arathorn

 

[Sullla]

Arathorn is completely right in everything he mentioned. Probably over 50% of the cities in my GOTM8 game were useless colonies that were there to do nothing but take up space. This is not Civ2; corruption is much higher in Civ3. The key thing is to have a "core" of uncorrupted cities around your capital. You can build a second core around your Forbidden Palace city as well, which is why its placement is so important. So in the game mentioned, most of the cities were useless but the ones near my capital and FP were extremely productive. And that game was won by using the horseman -> knight upgrade trick, which is another nice little feature you can use to dominate the AI civs.

 

[alexander dumas]

Thanks for responding to this thread Sulla. I've been reading the Succession game posting and I think the comments there will really help.

 

[jmansell02]

Thank you for those helpful comments. I believe they will help me a great deal.

_______________
jmansell02

Victory is life!