Diety help! Getting beat up badly

[IamJordan1]

Help, I'm getting beat up so badly. I'm playing Diety with a usual builder start. Get about 10 cities, and buy workers off the computers. Now that I see I'm getting so behind the techs that the computer is researching I launch a war against the French.

I had recently built about 15+ warriors and had them upgraded to swordsman. They are accompanied by about 10 horseman. This is about 1000 BC btw, I set up my attack near the neighboring French cities. In about the first turn I take 2 cities. And the next turn I take another 2 cities. Now the French are regrouping and I must accept peace for now, and attack again later.

My problem is, once I take the cities, they culture flip right back. I dont see how I am able to have this successful war. I can not build temples or my war would be delayed quiet a bit. Even tho I build temples in my city, some of the captured cities still flip back.

Am I suppose to take out the capital to destroy the culture? I'm pretty good on emperor, but Diety is so damn hard.

This is playing vanilla Civ3. Please help, I'm getting owned so badly by the other civs. Playing all random huge world.

[vmxa1]

It is very hard to say without a save to look at.
If you have a medicore starting location (lack of lux and rivers) it will be very tough to over come the bonus the AI gets at Deity.
If they have cities roaded to the capitol, it may be wise to raze them and drop your own settlers instead.
Otherwise, cut the road to the capitol and garrison troops to prevent or attempt to prevent a flip. How large is the city? I like to starve it down to 2 or even 1. This helps me to prevent flips as I can put citizens on entertainment.
When you say vanilla civ, do you mean no patches at all or just without PTW? If no patches, get 1.29f for PC USA version. Most here will not recall what was going that far back.

[georges bonbon]

I have never won on a bad starting position even on emperor level.

Sometimes you can finish the game that's about it.

[lmtoops]

I remember that the original Civ3 (no patch) was rediculous when it came to culture flipping. I know they toned it down in the next couple of patches (before PTW). So if you have not patches, it's worth getting them. I download the patch from the fixaris (sp?) site.

[IamJordan1]

Sorry I meant Vanilla Civ 1.29f no PTW hehe.

The problem I can see now is that I have resistance in the city. I am using about 3 horseman fortifed in the city and have a peace treaty now with the french taking about 4 cities and negociating another 2 out of the peace deal.

The 3 horseman are not able to quell 1 resistor. Its been about 3 turns and the resistor is still there. Is there any specific unit I should use to quell resistance, cause these horseman are not doing a very good job.

[vmxa1]

The units should not matter for quelling, only for defense, if needed.
Some factors to consider, what is the city size in total?
What is the disposition of the citizens in the city?
How close are you to the capitol or FP? Are you connected to your empire?
What structures are in this city?
I normally will put all citizens on entertainment right away, if there are any resisters. You can not get any production while in resistance anyway, so it cost you nothing.
I want to starve them down to 2 pop or 1. I want to get a road connected to my empire and if I am not going to have units attacking the next city over, then I may want to cut the road out to their empire.
If you are far removed from your empire, do not try to hold the city with 3 or more resisters, raze it. Even more so it the cit is surrounded by other cities.

[Brundlefly]

Re: Diety help! Getting beat up badly

Originally posted by IamJordan1
Help, I'm getting beat up so badly. I'm playing Diety with a usual builder start. .

That's the problem right there. You are trying to use a builder strategy on Diety. Success on Deity depends on military conquest. Turn research to zero. Extort tech from other civs based on your military might and number of cities acquired through force. Once you have secured your home continent, then you can start to think about building some infrastructure.

[Txurce]

There is a peaceful approach on 1.29 that definitely works, as long as you have a healthy 10+ city base by 1000BC or so. To achieve that base, research pottery at max science and build a granary in one of your first two cities. Improve and utilize all of your river squares, since you want every piece of gold available to you. In the meantime, send out explorers to meet as many other civs as possible. Then trade your way to near-tech parity all the way to the industrial era, when you can pull ahead with the ToE.

This requires diligence more than anything else. Research the unpopular tech first at minimum science - math or mysticism. You have a decent chance of serially trading it for multiple techs. Even if you don't, you can buy a tech with all the gold you're saving, and broker it to the other civs, thereby catching up. The key here is constant contact with each civ (it bores me to tears), waiting for the best-timed opportunity, when you can buy a non-monopoly tech and trade it for at least two others.

Probably the best single opportunity comes immediately after someone discovers mapmaking. This gives you the opportunity to trade not just this tech (after acquiring it), but to be the map broker to the world. Keep in mind that, unlike techs, a fresh map doesn't decrease in value as you trade it around in one turn.

This sequence can be repeated all the way throught the first two eras, researching shunned techs like polytheism, sometimes currency, and then - after an early medieval drought - the printing press. But again, it's not necessary to research anything yourself. More important is generating the gold necessary to start trading, and staying in contact to not miss the chance to buy and sell.

[Theseus]

Hi Txurce!!

FYI everyone: Putting the word "deity" in a thread title is like waving a red flag in front of a bull...

[Cruddy]

To hold down captured cities, turn all the inhabitants to entertainers and starve them down.

A city's chance of flipping increases hugely with civil disorder - so make sure that you have it connected for luxury resources. If there are a lot of resistors, turning on the City Governor to maintain happiness until starvation is complete can help (but note, if you do this you can't adjust the workers in the city until you turn off the governor).

The garrison depends on the difference in culture between you and the former cities owners. If it's even then you will need at LEAST one unit per citizen (distance to capital is also important).

Finally, if you can't garrison, take your horsemen out and wait for the flip. Then recapture it. Every time you capture a city the population drops one anyway - it's just as fast as starving them (although your troops get more beaten up).

If there is no civil disorder and you have a Despotic govt (very likely at 1000BC) then you can pop rush temples or libraries to get culture and remove "foreign" citizens at the same time.

Get that whip out! And Txurce is right, the F4 key (diplomacy) is vital to progress, whether in tech trading, military alliances, or any other sort of deal.

Hope this helps.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Theseus
Hi Txurce!!

FYI everyone: Putting the word "deity" in a thread title is like waving a red flag in front of a bull...

That's what I thought. When I saw the "I'm playing on Deity and using the usual builder strat" in the opening post I could tell the way this thread would go. Some people would tell him that playing as a builder on Deity was almost impossible (not unreasonably - very few people can do it) and then Txurce would show up and tell us all how it's done.

IamJordan1: There have been several threads around here on the subject of how to win Deity as a builder - most notably by Txurce. If you can find them (sorry, I don't have links) then I'm sure they would be of help to you.

[IamJordan1]

Well sorry I think my terminology of builder strat is ambigious. My builder strat is just expand to about fill out a nice decent area and claim all the good spots, and then fight. This usually happens around 1000 bc?

I then fight with tons of swords about 20 and horses and go full military in all my cities, and finish the war around 300bc - 1 AD? And completely integrated my opponents nation into mine.

Note: I just got PTW today for 17 dollars, so gonna hit that up tonight also hehe.

[Txurce]

IamJordan1, you said your problem was keeping up in tech. Making contact and trading for tech is about as effective whether you're warring or building.

[jshelr]

I echo Txurce's basic tone. To play on Deity, you need the lack of desire to dominate. I've played games where a couple of early limited wars earned some living space and then I built, but avoided libraries and universities. Forget wonders. Grovel and pay demands. Give gifts. You can buy tech cheap from civs that are behind the leaders. That closes the tech race up like bikers drafting in the Tour de France. Then you sit there and try to wait for the AI to implode through excessive wars. This is not very elegant or heroic but it works a reasonably high percentage of the time. Don't sprint for the spaceship until you see the finish line.

[jshelr]

Double post