Deity is not so hard

[solo]

Yup, deity is not too hard ... as long as you are one of the AI.

In CivII the human player could count on out-researching the AI, and use this tech advantage to control the game, but not so in CivIII. Early on, they learn about twice as fast as the human is permitted. Maybe the human player can catch up later on in deity, and maybe not! It’s been fun trying to find out!

[HalfLotus]

You are a brave man.

[Lord Maxwell]

I doubt that any of the really experienced civ players will find Diety all that hard in another six months time. Once you know exactly how everything works it's alot easier to make perfect moves.

And I think that big maps are alot more difficult than small maps. On big maps you have to use cities that loose all production to waste to build more cities that lose all production to waste so that once you get the Secret Thingamajig going they contribute. This is alot easier to accomplish on a tiny or small map. (Where I have 1/3rd again as much territory as any AI faction. Wars are starting up slowly as we are totally locked now, no new land to be had.)

People will climb the expertise ladder soon enough.

When I jumped from civ 2 to smac I didn't win on transcend in day one. (In fact I lost on librarian in my first game.) When I stopped playing smac I didn't lose games except weird challenges. (And I know that goes for alot of the rest of the forum crowd.)

And I think civ 3 is less like civ 2 than smac was, so don't let the similarities fool you into believing that you know all the details.

But in six months (or a year at the longest) deity level won't be so intimidating any more.

[Diety]

It will get easier to survive on Deity once we know the ins and outs of the game, that's true. But I think Deity is much harder then the highest difficulty levels in old games.

- Unhappiness after the first citizen ?
- Huge corruption on tiny and small maps ?
- AI headstart of *twice* your research rate in the beginning ?
- The vastly improved attack-AI ?
- The way resources are handled ?

I think you can counter some problems with custom maps (lots of resources, lots of luxuries, huge map with lots of land,...) but even then.

They did a great job, it will be quite a challenge

[Lord Maxwell]

Just the first citizen content isn't a problem once you develop a few cities. By then you will most likely have found two different luxuries, which would allow an otherwise unassisted city to have two happy faces. Which ends up as 3 content citizens. For the opening you don't need more than 3 people in any city.

So one luxury and one garrison is enough.

I think it will be pretty easy to beat deity if you get your own continent. (Testing it now.) The AI has mostly been improved in expansion and attack. It still builds city improvements like a drunken monkey. You can keep up in expansion, and being isolated you can strategically build up your defensive capabilities. (If you fill a continent you can garrison the sea cities. If your govt allows atleast one garrison to quell an unhappy face then you should have "special" troops like bombardment/counter attack garrisoned in the second outermost ring of cities. They can then reinforce any outer city, and in peacetime quell unhappy faces.)

What will be the true mark of a hero on deity is early victories in war. The AI builds obscene amounts of troops, and often attacks pretty well with them. (Trying to flank you at every opportunity, and tries to draw you into the field.) When 30 immortals make an appearance you are in it bad.

Isolationist deity victories will probably be done by almost anyone pretty soon. But beating one civ in an early war and still maintaining momentum enough to keep up with the pack will be damn difficult.

I hate animated gifs!

[kittenOFchaos]

LORD MAXWELL: and I quote
"I doubt that any of the really experienced civ players will find Diety all that hard in another six months time. Once you know exactly how everything works it's alot easier to make perfect moves."

I'd bloody well hope so...in SIX MONTHS TIME!!! You really think it'll take THAT long! here's hoping!

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
You are a brave man.

I quite agree... however I have found that the AI in Civ2 is not that easily trickable with tech... it always finds a way to halfway keep up with your tech, especially by tech trading between the civs...

[Diety]

Yep, tech trading between civs is a major "problem"...
And the problem in CIV III is probably worse, because the way the tech cost is build up. We have to reasearch more differnt things, they all specialize in one area and trade away.

It won't be easy, but somehow we'll overcome After all, we're humans ! Well most of us