Diety level

[rickontherun_21]

OK, i'm trying diety level, and i got to say its much harder than chieftain! But seroiusly how many units shuold i have in defense in in city.

[rjmatsleepers]

That depends what sort of game you are playing. In a lot of the early landing games cities have no defenders and diplomacy (tech gifting) is used to keep the AI civs sweet.

On the other hand three vet units behind city walls will usually work. Try one good defensive unit, one good attacking unit to take care of the slow but powerful enemy and a mobile unit for patrols. Having a diplomat handy for bribing is good too.

RJM at Sleepers

[Scouse Gits]

For my money - the secret of Deity level is expansion - get those cities down - I feel that a city needs only a single Warrior to ensure martial law and then spews out the Settlers - of course I make the HG my priority WoW - and generally start it in my capital asap - this fixes the happiness problems for the first 5 millenia

Obviously the following depends upon map - closeness of AI and a thousand other factors, but my 'ideal' build list is something like:

Cap: Warrior, Warrior, Temple, start HG
2nd city: Warrior, Settler, Warrior (to run to cap), Settler
Other cities: Warrior, Settlers

This continues until Trade changes all the rules, on a good day you will get a couple of NON four legged explorers before founding, if this doesn't happen build a couple yourself.

Tech path - beeline to Monarchy taking Pottery as the junk tech - then go for Trade

But this is merely my preference - there are a zillion ways of skinning this cat - such is the glory of this game.

SG[1]

[rah]

I like building a settler out of my cap. The extra city early really makes a difference. In MP double production games, I'll spit out 2 settlers from my cap. (always playing deity)

[DrSpike]

Most cities don't need anything other than the warrior military police, especially core cities. Keep some mobile countering units and diplos at strategic locations and you'll be fine.

And it's DEITY!

[rah]

But you never know when that barb ship will appear in that one square ocean in the middle of your territory and unload knights or crusaders that can move and attack on the same turn. So it's always nice to have one good defensive unit.

[DrSpike]

Hehe that blows. Sure have some defensive units, but noone puts phalanxes in every (or even every city hypothetically vulnerable to the phenomenon you mention) city early game in either SP or MP.

The thread starter wants opinions, and in my opinion beginners are more likely to overdefend than underdefend, so I emphasised not overdefending.

[rah]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Hehe that blows. Sure have some defensive units, but noone puts phalanxes in every (or even every city hypothetically vulnerable to the phenomenon you mention) city early game in either SP or MP.

I do. I put at least one phalanx in every city that might be subject to attack. (and I'm not a newb) Maybe you should play more than you post.

RAH

[DrSpike]

My opinion is a valid one, and I was responding to the thread starter (predominantly for SP) with my opinion. Sorry if that bothers you.

[DrSpike]

Oops. Misclick.

[rah]

Even in SP i Play raging hoards so I do the same thing. So I don't see the difference. My statement stands. You should play more than post. Your opinions might have more weight than a simple +1 or +2 when you misclick.

Sorry if that bothers you

RAH

[DrSpike]

I don't know why you are being such an ass about this Rah.

Having said that I hope you did not misinterpret my "hehe that blows" above as meaning your post (or the opinions therein) blows, because it meant it blows when barbs appear on an inland sea with 2 move attackers.......since core cities are often not so well defended.

Now as to the point, I will often defend cities that are potentially vulnerable to attack generally with a phalanx, but my statement was clearly about defending cities from the phenomenon to which you alluded. If I felt the only threat to a city was to a 2-move barb from an inland sea I doubt I'd build a phalanx and slow down my expansion. That's just my opinion, you are free to do otherwise.

However I ask that you keep any posts you make disagreeing with me about the issues we are discussing and not about attacking my posting or amount of play time generally.

For what it's worth over the last 10 days I played around 40 hours on some ELG games.

[rah]

While I mostly agree that newbs have a tendency to over defend some real experienced players have a tendency to underdefend and take the risk associated with it, Knowing that if the risk goes bad, they can quit or restart, then claim they just had bad luck instead of admitting that their calculated risk bit them in the butt like it will sometimes. But if it works, it was skill.

By first comment was simple light hearted teasing since you inferred that some phalanx builders are newbs (ME). You fired back so I did too. I'll Chill, and no hard feelings.

RAH

[DrSpike]

Cool.

I never said phalanx builders were noobs, just that defence can easily be overdone. And it is something that new players tend to do......I know I did back in '96 when the game came out. Obviously you are not a new player, but IIRC (and I may not ) in a thread discussing this point about a year back you yourself said you thought you probably overdid defence.

I agree with your comment about calculated risk........and I have been caught in MP with my pants down before........but I have never claimed I was unlucky when I was caught.

And in SP where the AI can usually be persuaded to lay off it is even easier to overdefend IMO......which is why I suggested earlier to Rick to use warriors + counters + diplos as much as is possible.

[rah]

Yep, war4 is another that risks the warrior defense, but at least when it comes back to bite him, he'll admit it, but there are many others that say to do otherwise is stupid, until it doesn't work, then it was luck. And yes I do sometimes overdo the defense, but it's reasonably contolled and I don't fall too far behind expanding and catch up quite quickly since I'm not losing any cities. I'll build that extra phalanx to escort the settler out (after the first few). I rarely lose a settler that way, so it's worth the investment.

And the AI is a lot more aggressive in the MP version. But the main defense is for the early barb attacks that can cripple you. Losing a city before 3000 bc isn't critical in sp (since NOTHING is really critical in SP) but in mp it can be devestating. and requires a little luck to recover from.