Do you cheat in deity/raging?

[Marko_Polo]

Hi all!

I'm new here (but not new to TBS-games!) and decided to start a deity/raging with the biggest random map, biggest land masses as continents and 7 civs. I ended up to a continent where I was alone. I'm really shocked how difficult it is! I decided not to use save/load-cheat with for example getting the stuff from the huts you want.

So my question is: do you have to cheat to win in the game? I've seen that quite many in here are playing deity/raging. How do you do it?

Keeping people happy seems very hard task. I first got monarchy, then build 3 units and temple to have 5-sized cities. I build my continent full of cities and as game went on something strange happened. Newly found city's 1. inhabitant was immediately black and even 3 units didn't make him content. I had to put my only worker as entertainer and start building temple very slowly. Does anyone know when a person is black rebellian?

I had tremendous problems to get money.. corruption was so high it wouldn't help much to build market places. Maybe I should have built the court after temple? I tried to build trade routes from my 5-6 size city to another and that gave me a 0-profit both ways! Those two cities were at least 30 map squares away. How disappointing!

For wonders I managed to get GL, oracle and Leo, but all the rest went to AI players Even the pyramids to my great disappointment.

I first met Americans who immediately demanded me monarchy and when I declined they went to war with me and destroyed my poor diplomat.. same happened to me with 1. contact with England. Japan was more kind to me and I exchanged all the advances with them and even got an alliance with them.

My game is now at 1750 AD as I discovered gunpowder. I'm biggest in population but military conquest would be difficult as all the enemies are behind ocean.

A little background info of me: after playing CTP1 & 2 I have returned to this old classic of CIV2, because I got bored of CTP2's (Call to Power 2) lack of AI aggression. AI simply doesn't attack you but very rarely. It won't even take your empty cities!

Could someone kindly offer me some tips what I should do differently? And for that cheating question, what's your way?
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Marko_Polo (edited January 06, 2001).]</font>

[jcarkey]

No, I don't cheat. And don't think that CIV2's AI is any better.

------------------
Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

[Lefty Scaevola]

I believe raging hordes is an overall benifit at all levels, but particularly at the higher ones. The human player is better at dealing with barbs than the AI. So, in additon to a score bonus, it retards the AI's devolopment more than the human's.

------------------
Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you

[Wiglaf]

quote: And don't think that CIV2's AI is any better.

Oh but it is!

quote: Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

I have to disagree with Lefty, though. The AI in my games slaughters barbs without breaking a sweat, and the computer doesn't get annoyed like the human would when they don't stop coming. And Marko, switch to fundy as fast as possible - no more riots. Use spies from then on to get tech if needed.

[jcarkey]

SMACed, I've never played CTP2 so I wouldn't know. But my logic was that newer games would probably be updated and improved.

------------------
Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

[Lefty Scaevola]

I find that barbs a mostly a scource of revenue, cheap units to bribe, and useful training marterial to make my tropps veteran. I find no trouble with them untile the 1800s when they start getting those huge swarms of guerillas (1/3mp all terrain ignore zoc) with cavalry (8 attack factor). sometimes near pesistance barb appearing area, after i have gurrilla warfare and I am in democracy, I build cities for the purpose of the barbs capturing them (trying to manage it so they get there with just 1 unit) to thus recieve my own swarm of NON guerilla units.

------------------
Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you

[Wiglaf]

quote: But my logic was that newer games would probably be updated and improved

Keep in mind Activision is developing ctp2 and they have no idea how to make a tbs game - the ideas are good but the execution is sloppy.

[Smash]

Here is good tip for deity newcomers.Forget the Pyramids and put high priority on the Hanging Gardens.

[zyxpsilon]

quote: Originally posted by Marko_Polo on 01-06-2001 10:26 AM do you have to cheat to win in the game?

I -never- cheat!
That's where the real challenge lies.
How to beat "DEITY"?
Here's a hint:
BOATS, PLANES and AUTOMOBILES! First.
Capture the raging Barbarian LEADERS every single opportunity you get.
Without the Eiffel Tower? Good luck.
Democratically yours.

[Bereta_Eder]

Today I started my very first Deity game! I played in Emperor all along and I thought, since most of the times I won in Emperor, I would be up to the challenge.

Wrong. Two things give me a hard time. AI and unhappiness. But I have to say that the most exasperating is trying to keep the populace happy in Deity.

In Emperor my cities would rarely go into disorder, in Deity it happens all the time. Thank God I haven't yet faced a city with size 1 and unhappy...

I tried to wage war against the always pissed off russians but I lost a city and the russian military kept coming. They don't pull any punches in deity huh?!
In a few turns they had destroyed half of the seven civs and their civ became huge.

Anyway, I started to remain behind in technology (alway my foremost concern) so I did something radical:
I forged an alliance with the russians. «All» it took was 200 gold and the secret of writing. It wasn't hard to do to stay alive.

If only they would give me enough time to get my killer state machine up and running like I know how to do...

Dammit I feel like a protectorate. Deity is tough!
But I'll keep true to the promise of never ever going back on a saved game in Civ.

I don't know what will happen next to my civ but my advice is (for now) if you can't beat them join them.

[Scouse Gits]

No - I don't cheat - what's the point?

To handle the unhappiness problems in Deity you might try following one of the tried strategies such as DaveV's ICS - see the temporary Great Library (the sticky thread at the top of the Strategy forum

------------------
____________
Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"
"A short cut has to be challenging,
were it not so it would be 'the way'." - Paul Craven

[Bereta_Eder]

Thanx for the info guys. I have the guide but I am relunctant to read it. I just want to discover (and unescapably suffer) everything on my own.

About the hanging gardens and oracle, yeah they seem to be necessary. Too bad they are already built by others...

With so many entertainers, my empire is starting to look like a damn circus

[Laertes]

I can't believe this thread has run for so long without mention of caravans and trade.

The #1 most powerful unit in the game is the caravan/freight. Delivering a caravan to a distant, preferably overseas, foreign city will give you gold, science beakers and trade arrows. The amounts can be huge (1000 gold, 8 turns of beakers and 3 arrows per turn of trade). The earlier you get it delivered, the better the pay off. Other factors are distance, no of trade arrows in each city, and whether the good is demanded or not in the destination city.

Science and trade are so important that most strategies include a Super Science City with Collosus, Copernicus and Isaac, and lots of caravans to/from that city. Only the Infinite City Sleaze strategy does not include this city.

Trade arrows also lead to luxury benefits which increase happiness.

Caravans also allow rush building of wonders, and are usually required if you are trying to build Hanging Gardens, Collosus and Copernicus.

I never build the Oracle, Bach is better and lasts forever.

There is a predictable pattern of cities becoming black-unhappy. A search through the archives should find it, as we discussed it recently. On a small world at Deity, in Monarchy, your 9th city (I think) could have a black pirate as it first citizen.

The solution to unhappiness is warriors. Cheap to rush build, and give one content citizen up to a max of three.

Early build patterns for non-wonder buildiong cities are often something like warrior-settler-warrior-settler-warrior-caravan-settler-settler-temple. Leaving the temple until late saves money (tax rate vs science). You need a temple for your 5th citizen, in a "normal happy" city, there is seldom need to build it before that.

As you progress, get Michalangelo and then republic for another trade benefit and rapid city growth with "We Love the COnsul" days.

Alternatively, refer to Xin Yu's "Size 5 strategy" or DaveV's ICS strategy for completely different routes.

[kcbob]

I don't cheat. What you're referring to in your original post as save/load was something I did until I was advised against it by the members at Apolyton. The bottom line was, grin and bear it, live and learn, yada, yada, yada. But it was good advice. The closest I come now to cheating is giving up when I'm sure it's a lost cause. While that may vary from 3000 BC to 1500 AD, I still consider it a loss. With that in mind, I would have to say my success rate at Deity level is around 30 to 50 percent. Others might be more successful but, hey, at least it keeps me coming back.

I will say this, though. There have been a couple of games that I played through to what I thought would be the bitter end and was pleasantly surprised by my success in the latter stages of the game.

As for happiness, it is difficult, to be sure. As Smash said, HG is a huge plus. I used to not bother with it until I got seduced by ICS. Regardless of which style I play, though, I also almost always start to build temples early. You never can be too happy, n'est-ce pas?

One thing I've learned recently. Whenever you change governments or take a city or found a city, check with your attitude advisor ASAP!! I've been burned a couple of times on being slow there.

* edit *

And as Fergus just mentioned, MC is also huge for happiness.

------------------
Frodo lives!
[This message has been edited by kcbob (edited January 08, 2001).]

[weird god]

cheating? the AI is the only one who cheats is my rare single-player games