Keeping up with deity AI

[mao_tse_tung]

Hi guys,
Is it possible to keep up with deity AI, let alone win against them? By the year 1225 BC, I only completed 3 advances. By the time, my AI opponents already finished building 2 Wonders. It's still logical if Religious Civ build Oracle early (because they start with Cer. burial, thus saving time for researching mysticism that allows oracle). But Germany (which doesn't start with cerem burial) built oracle in 1500 BC, I'm still researching mysticism. Can you imagine that? That means not only the Germans have finished researching 2 advances, but also managed to complete the expensive oracle.
I know there's some bonus for deity AI, but don't you think that's just impossible to defeat?
Is there a way to keep up with deity AI, let alone defeat them? Help guys.

 

[Spoonwood]

Conquests or Vanilla here mao_tse_tung? Any saves for us? It's well possible to keep up with Deity level AI, you just have to pick the right techs and trade well. Here's a fairly detailed article about playing Deity level games a certain way that also has some links to some other nice articles http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122419

 

[capnvonbaron]

Really, the oracle is not too expensive, especially compared to pyramids or hanging gardens. If the oracle was the second wonder completed, than germany was likely building the first wonder and just switched to oracle after another civ completed that first wonder before Germany could. It doesn't mean that they were first to mystisism at all... the ones first to it may have just begun building Oracle in a town that produced 2 spt where Germany had a powerhouse 10- or 12 spt city working on it. The AI is silly like that sometimes

But Spoon is right... more info is needed for anyone to help. What is your "comfort difficulty level", ie, the one you play with the most success? If you just eek a living on regent, you're not going to stand a chance at diety.

 

[mao_tse_tung]

I play the standard pack Civ3 not the extension. I just finished playing Civ2 deity and CTP2 Impossible, so I think it's save to say that my level is above average . And how does AI deity can build so many cities, and not just small but 5 cities of 7,4,3,5 and 1 citizens by the year 1225BC (I only built 2). It took 2 citizens to build 1 settler (needed to found 1 new city), thus declining science revenue and production power big time. Unless, AI starts with at least 2 settlers. It also took 1 citizen to build one worker. So you just can't build as many workers as you like. ????

 

[Lord Emsworth]

On Deity the AI get certain bonuses. They start for example with a whole bunch of offensive and defensive units (Germany gets Spears and Archers!), they get extra workers, and most of all a free settler. Then there is not only a 60% production discount (means they only need to pay 60% of the shields that you have to pay), but they also only need 60% of the food that you need in order to grow the cities.

The extra settler in combination with only needing 12 food to grow pretty much means that within very short time there'll be 3 or even 4 cities per AI before you have got your first settler out. And there isn't anything much you can do against it, even if you manage your food, shields etc yet so clever.

Then there are a few things which are different in Vanilla ("standard pack") than they are in C3C. One of these things is that contact trading comes already with Writing and another that map trading comes with Map Making. The fact that with Writing all the AI (can) know each other lets another bonus - the AI-AI trade bonus - kick in with full force. The early map trading on top of that deals the AI and additional and readily available trading asset.

 

[Spoonwood]

Civ II and civ III play quite differently, in my opinion. No doubt you have some knowledge of basic concepts like territory improvement, buildling new cities, and infrastructure... but even the last part comes as misleading as improvements cost a different amount of upkeep in civ III than in civ II. The trading system works much differently in civ III than in civ II. The AIs trade tech with each other much more... especially at higher levels. At Deity level in civ III the AIs have a cost discount of 60%. The "usual" food box at Regent level requires 20 food to fill up. Because of the cost discount, therefore, a Deity level AI town only needs 12 food to grow in size. I don't think that happens in civ II. At Deity level the AIs start with an extra settler. I'd suggest scaling back a level or two... probably to Emperor, if not Monarch for your first couple of games. As I already said, there exist quite a few differences between the two games... railroads work differently for example, *and* you can mine tiles in civ III which you could only do on hills and mountains in civ II. And no terraforming either. And a lot more really.

Here's an account of a player playing civ III after playing civ II from a while ago that you might enjoy: http://www.warpcore.org/~sirian/civ3/game1.html

 

[mao_tse_tung]

So, you guys saying that deity AI is indeed NOT invincible? Usually to win against AI, there are certain conditions:
1. You are not placed in mini continent
2. The tiles around you are of medium to good quality

Once these conditions have been met, experienced players are guaranteed to win, unless you make a lot of mistakes.

Are those two conditions enough to win against deity AI in Civ3, or are there any other additional condition needed?

Those 2 conditions have been met, and yet I still lose bitterly. My game setting:
Huge Map
Roman
Temperate climate
normal weather
5 million years earth
deity difficulty
Lowest level of barbs
Pangea

 

[Spoonwood]

Players have won at Deity with tundra starts. You'll need plenty more practice with civ III, I'd think, though before you can do that. You don't have to lead in tech to win. I suspect you need practice with the trading system Mao. What did you research in the ancient age, and what techs did you buy/trade for? There also exists the Great Library (players commenting about such as a "crutch" remember this as a Deity-level game, and he's a newbie *to civ III*, and realize that players have used it on Sid.) Please click on "go advanced" and upload a save from there for us Mao. We could help you much more that way .

 

[capnvonbaron]

Well I wouldn't say the GLib is a crutch at Sid... if you manage to build it before the AI you're doing something right

I'd say pangea is going against you... since AI civs love to make favorable trades with each other, the sooner they meet each other, the sooner they start trading around, the further you get behind in the AA. Huge maps have the highest tech cost (going largely against you) and give the AI the most room to expand into and achieve "runaway" status.

So I'd suggest trying on a smaller map size with continents/archipelago too, until you get better.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think most players seem to think standard map sizes the hardest. Getting the Great Library on Deity can sometimes fail, depending on the map and if you don't prioritize it early enough.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Those 2 conditions have been met, and yet I still lose bitterly. My game setting:
Huge Map
Roman
Temperate climate
normal weather
5 million years earth
deity difficulty
Lowest level of barbs
Pangea

IIRC there are differences between the patches as to what lowest level of barbs means. Up to some point one setting was missing, but I cannot fully remember if that missing setting was "sedentary" on "none." So, if your lowest level of barbs is "sedentary" (means there are only goody huts, but no barb camps) that will just make the tech pace even faster via AI goody hut popping.

 

[mao_tse_tung]

OK, I'll upload my saves. But is it really necessary to trade tech with AI? Wouldn't it make AIs to move along tech tree even faster? Or is it the key to victory against deity AI?
Spoonwood:
You said that I don't have to out-tech AI in order to defeat them. Really??
Because the type of victory I want is conquest , not cultural or diplomatic or other "funny" type of victory (no offense guys) ho..ho..ho.. Eventhough IMO that diplomatic victory is sometimes proven more difficult than conquest victory.

Lord Emsworth :
Yes, the barb was sedentary. Sorry.

 

[Jokeslayer]

OK, I'll upload my saves. But is it really necessary to trade tech with AI? Wouldn't it make AIs to move along tech tree even faster? Or is it the key to victory against deity AI?

The AI are going to trade techs with each other, so unless you can outresearch all of them (remembering that some of the time they'll be working on different techs to each other) you'll need to trade techs. Even though it does speed them up, the key is to trade one tech for lots of techs. Say you know writing but nobody else does. However, the Japanese know Horseback Riding, the French know Mathematics and the Russians know Iron Working 9and you know none of those). If you can get those techs from them, trading only Writing in each case, you'll benefit much more than any individual AI civ will.

You said that I don't have to out-tech AI in order to defeat them. Really??
Because the type of victory I want is conquest , not cultural or diplomatic or other "funny" type of victory (no offense guys) ho..ho..ho.. Eventhough IMO that diplomatic victory is sometimes proven more difficult than conquest victory

You can win wars without a tech advantage, mostly because the AI sucks at war. If you can find the thread about Bamspeedy's Beyond Sid game, he does this in that.

EDIT: found it for you http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=66169

 

[texico11]

The AI are going to trade techs with each other, so unless you can outresearch all of them (remembering that some of the time they'll be working on different techs to each other) you'll need to trade techs. Even though it does speed them up, the key is to trade one tech for lots of techs. Say you know writing but nobody else does. However, the Japanese know Horseback Riding, the French know Mathematics and the Russians know Iron Working 9and you know none of those). If you can get those techs from them, trading only Writing in each case, you'll benefit much more than any individual AI civ will.

To add to this, also note that you must not trade like this over multiple turns. If, for example you trade writing with the Japanese, you must trade it with all the other civs straight away. If you leave it even one turn, the Japanese will most likely trade it with everyone else on the interturn, thus making it worthless to you and losing you all that possible tech.

 

[Spoonwood]

Yeah... coming from civ II it might sound strange, but skillful trading of tech really *does* work to your advantage in civ III. As Jokeslayer explained, the advantage (at least in the ancient age) comes from trading one tech for multiple techs on the same turn. Later on... especially on Huge Deity maps, if you get to a tech first, you can sell it for a slew of gold per turn (gpt). Only certain technologies gives anyone any sort of military upgrades, so you can trail in tech in this respect, and as Jokeslayer noted, the AI doesn't war all too efficiently. Artillery (catapults, trebuchets, cannons, artillery proper, radar artillery) work *much* differently in civ III than in civ II. You might want to take a look at these articles http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/warmongering101.php
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/artillery_effective.php
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/artillery_rush.php

 

[Snarkhunter]

. . . . Only certain technologies gives anyone any sort of military upgrades, so you can trail in tech in this respect, and as Jokeslayer noted, the AI doesn't war all too efficiently.

And if giving an AI a military tech or leg up a military branch of the tech tree worries you, something like CAII will tell you what resources the potential customer has; if it lacks the necessary resource to build the unit(s) that worry you, you can trade with a bit more impunity. It's not too infrequent that there is a resource bottleneck that you can contrive to strangle, either outright or in effect; then the AI may be eager for your tech but unable to do much for it, even by trying to trade for the resource.

In my current game, only 3 of us have saltpeter, once I took away a neighbor's 2 sources. Only 1 of the 2 AI's can really trade it, so at least 3 of the AI's can't really ever build with it. I can live with everyone having techs that depend on it in that situation; I really only have to keep track of the 1 AI with multiple sources--and it happens to be my next target anyways.

It's not a perfect strategy, but the rewards of trading monopoly techs far outweigh the risks in such a situation, I am convinced. And sooner or later an AI will get the tech on its own & promptly trade it to everyone anyhow; you might as well get your cut first.

kk

 

[mao_tse_tung]

But in order tech-trading to work, you need to get in touch with at least 2 civs (so you can get 2 tech for the price of 1). And in huge pangea map, just to get in contact with 1 other civ proven to be quite difficult. And by the time we get contact, they already have all the tech I have. So this kind of strategy only works in the very early stage of the game. However, if you manage to do this, you could maintain tech superiority over other civs for several turns (they can only get 1 tech, while we get 2 techs or more depending on the civs you know). Then you can trade the other free techs for more techs. Besides, we can't expand as fast as AIs, thus without us realizing it, the entire map already belong to the AI while we're stuck with only 5 cities.

 

[Jokeslayer]

A good advantage in early tech trading is that you know it's going to happen. So aim early for a second level tech (writing, mathematics etc.) that you can trade around later for a bunch of first level techs (and hopefully some other second level techs too), then pick a third level tech (currency, code of laws etc.) and repeat.

Not to sound harsh, but if you can't do this, (and you're getting murdered in the expansion phase), you're going to die really fast at Deity. Drop down a level or two to get used to this stuff.

 

[Snarkhunter]

But in order tech-trading to work, you need to get in touch with at least 2 civs (so you can get 2 tech for the price of 1). And in huge pangea map, just to get in contact with 1 other civ proven to be quite difficult. And by the time we get contact, they already have all the tech I have. So this kind of strategy only works in the very early stage of the game. However, if you manage to do this, you could maintain tech superiority over other civs for several turns (they can only get 1 tech, while we get 2 techs or more depending on the civs you know). Then you can trade the other free techs for more techs. Besides, we can't expand as fast as AIs, thus without us realizing it, the entire map already belong to the AI while we're stuck with only 5 cities.

The trick is to find branches of the tech tree that the AI usually doesn't hit right away, and keep plugging. In my current game, I've only found 3 monopoly techs in 200 turns, but that's been enough to keep me in rough tech parity.

kk

 

[Lord Emsworth]

But in order tech-trading to work, you need to get in touch with at least 2 civs (so you can get 2 tech for the price of 1). And in huge pangea map, just to get in contact with 1 other civ proven to be quite difficult.

A deity pangaea game it is probably the easiest to meet other civs. That is, as long as you right off the bat build two or three exploring warriors you should quickly run into at least some of the plentifully available AI starting units.

Or course, if you play on a huge map with only very few civs (10 or even less) then yes, it can take some time.