Diplomatic Victory - Deity Level

[Ivana]

Here's a short story how I managed to win the Deity level via diplomacy, I hope this helps you too to finally get a good night sleep This was my first standard map size game on Deity difficulty and I won it - I'm a little bit disappointed that the game isn't harder. But I can sleep again! Okay, let's go:

THE WORLD
Size: Standard
Barbarians: Sedentary
Land mass: Archipelago with the smallest islands
Civilization: Persians
Rivals: Random (7)
Rules: Default (all)
Difficulty: Deity

GAMEPLAY
1. Founded Persepolis 3950 BC. I had a goal of at least conquering my island and just try to survive as long as possible - to see how hard deity level is and how fast they would develop/spread/kill. Made two warriors, another worker and barracks. Developed Iron working and started making Immortals. I founded no other cities during the entire game.
2. Conquered the island 1375 BC. There was only one other civilization on the island - Zulus - which I destroyed with I guess 7-8 Immortals. I started the trouble with Zulus when I got my third Immortal. Got a leader which I used to make the Pyramids. From then on I was at war with both Japanese and Indians who kept founding cities on MY island. Some of the cities I raged, some kept. I got another leader from the battles which I stored (fortified in Persepolis) for later use.
3. Peace 260 AD. The whole island to myself and a bunch of elite Immortals. Made resource trade agreements and embassies with everyone as they revealed themselves to me and tried to grow the cities. My island was pretty much all desert, so it was very difficult. Important: Build a harbor and roads to your luxuries fast, that way you can trade. No one attacked me after 260 AD peace - I guess because of the trade agreements and some gifts everyone was gracious towards me. I also didn't make any military agreements nor military units.
4. Democracy 850 AD. So what now? I'm on deity level, with practically everyone else more advanced than me. Surprised that I was even still alive. I discovered that I could buy technology more quickly than I could develop it so I toggled my science research percentage to zero and started buying. My goal was to use the leader to make the Hoover dam - to catch up with others. But guess what? By the time I was ready to make the damn dam, I couldn't because on my dry desert Island there wasn't a single RIVER! I (luckily) had to set a new goal - to reach for Fission technology and make the United Nations with the leader. And guess what:
5. Established UN 1325 AD. Diplomatic victory! I got four votes out of six possible. Game over. 5318 points.

ABOUT ATTITUDES
When dealing with other nations, making 20 round trade agreements often turns a "cautious" or "annoyed" emperor to "polite". When you give something for free to him (science, luxuries), he turns to "gracious", that's why they probably chose me as secretary general and didn't start war once. Don't trade all your luxuries with one or two nations, give everybody something and renew the agreements. That way everyone is happy.

ABOUT SCIENCE TRADING
If you're gonna use the strategy of buying technology - please - PLEASE - sell it also! I could've had even easier game had I traded the technology both directions, not just buying it like a regular shopaholic. But stupid is as stupid does. More sophisticated people call trading science the "Science broker" strategy, "Pope strategy" or similar. I bet there are articles about them. I might call mine the "Switzerland" strategy

I hope this article helps you!

 

[Ivana]

The "diplomatic way" works on a large map as well - I just finished testing. I won't test the strategy on a huge map... I don't have the motivation, the game is just too easy

You don't need any leaders either to win, I one the space race by dedicating three cities to only production. Other civs don't seem to focus enough to be faster.

Diplomatic and trade agreements seem to be of highest importance in keeping good relations with neighbors. Stay out of war!

 

[Chairman Qu]

The most important thing on the higher difficulty levels if you want easy victories are luxuries and resources, especially for diplomatic victories. If you lots of luxuries and extra strategic resouces in your lands you're pretty much safe from anything. The AI civs will give you just about everything you could want from them, from techs to gold, and no matter how much they're paying they'll be either polite or gracious with you. Then when the time comes, prebuild for the UN, and then trade for fission at the first possibility, and you win. Of course, if you have to actually fight for the resources, it's a little harder, depending on the amount of wars you have.

 

[Ivana]

You don't even need to pre-build, the Civ3 AI is not smart enough to make productive cities. At the start of the game AI usually both out-builds AND out-expands you. But in the AD's you can grow a city to 18-20 people and mine the city-radius so that the city is not growing (specialists are a burden to city production - a tip for beginners).

I never make mutual protection packs during a game when I'm playing peacefully, but if you're building the UN and you're not SURE that they're gonna vote for you, as a last resort make MPPs with everyone that agrees to one round before UN finishes and "protect" them for the last round I'm not positive on this, but gracious attitudes towards you seem to mean nothing when there are MPPs in effect.

One other thing I forgot to mention in the original article: Swallow your pride when playing peacefully! Let them wonder in your territory and sail your sea squares - they won't do any harm. I've never been sneak-attacked by the AI.

 

[d3dash]

"I've never been sneak-attacked by the AI"

then you are lucky, I get sneak attacks all the time!!!!!

 

[Chinese American]

For many civs, the only sure way to win is diplomatic--if you survive the initial onslaught or if you're lucky to be isolated on a remote island. I've never got past the BCs when I was surrounded by other civs. They start out with more units, and the civ you play might not have UUs in the ancient age. I've lost many games before I finally got my own island. Only then could I build 7-8 of my own cities without having to fight for breathing space.

I'm only into 540 AD, but I'm way behind the other civs in tech, military, wonders, and just about everything else. I'm barely starting the middle ages and everyone else is probably late industrial. At least no one's bothering me, so now I can concentrate on making money to "bribe" my way to a diplomatic victory. Of course, I have to start building efficient cities. I've only just revolted to Republic, so it should get better.

The most annoying thing is that every time a city raises a pop, the next turn it would be in disorder. I have only eight cities, so it shouldn't be too problematic to check every city every turn. But sometimes it slips by you and it wastes valuable turns, especially when you're playing catch-up.

 

[eae]

I know this thread is old, but I just had to post here, since I finally beat the game on deity as well.

My world was something like this:
Size: Huge
Barbarians: Raging
Land mass: Continents with the smallest land mass
Civilization: French
Rivals: Random (15)
Rules: Default (all)
Difficulty: Deity

I gotta admit, it was easier than I thought. The beginning sucked like hell. Me AND the English were stuck on a tiny island with half of it covered in mountains (no cities there). Basically, the second I finish first settler, I see some random English city some six squares away from my capital. I already start thinking that no way this game is gonna end up good. Well, I ended up capturing it, and building my own right next to it. I then founded another city, after which I spent the next who knows how many turns trying to capture their capital. It finally fell at some point, and the rest was easy. They were really desperate, so I left them one city. Mainly because the computers on deity are crazy with technologies, I got to bully a few from them. I am now with 11 cities and a far away island of my own.

Next thing I realize, I am researching literature in 200 AD, while others are competing for the the wonders of late middle ages. At some point I think I was 18 technologies behind. No kidding. There was no way to communicate with the others, as my galleys would take more than three turns to reach to reach any part of any other island, surely sinking them. I was seriously thinking about calling the whole game a failure. But no. I managed to I stopped research completely, traded six of my seven silks to far away people and started buying technologies like a madman. I went from ancient to industrial era from 200 AD to 500 AD, or at least pretty close. No kidding.

After that, I was able to start to buy technologies that not every one had, meaning that it wasn't all buying anymore, now selling as well.

Though my army was pretty strong in the beginning in terms of numbers (since I ran out of improvements to build), others very becoming stronger towards the end. Some random civs came to me and demanded 21 gold and territory map (while I was making hundreds per turn), but out of principle I said no. They declared war, but never made it to my island. Gotta warn folks though, once I made enemies with someone, they ended up having lots of people ally against me and made embargoes, so I had to load.

Anyway, as the game progressed, technology was progressing even faster. I managed to complete Theory of Evolution, which gave me tech to build Hoover Dam. So after having that, I was able to produce things really fast, allowing me to make a proper army.

The coolest thing about the game were the world wars. Gotta say, I played 8 civ games before, and you can't even compare the wars. Here there wars 12 vs 2 civs. Egypt in my game, for example, was the most powerful nation of all at one point. A few moments later, they had a couple cities on far away islands.

Just after 1000 AD we were already in the modern times. Nothing really changed. I was still alone, and the people on the continents were killing each other. Surely enough, soon comes along Fission. I was losing the space race, just barely though. I losing in the race to build UN major. That's where sabotage came in. I ended up being the first to build it. In the end I was trading my silks to everyone making a lot of people polite, and I was somewhat successfully fighting the small island nation of China, giving me a couple of gracious allies.

So I held the votes. Out of 16 civs: 4 were dead, 2 didn't vote, my rival voted for himself, and I finished with 9 votes. There it was, game won by 1350 AD with over 5500 points making my Joan d'Arc the Magnificent. Not bad I say.

What I'd like to add though, is that if I had a little bit more room, I could even have won space race. So all in all, deity is very beatable. I'd say that the computers played pretty badly, considering that they had, what was it, over 30% faster build speed and lots of cities. And there were 15 of them.