3-Step approaching for beating Deity

[Dog of Justice]

Xin -- are you sure you can found a city on mountains? The game prevented me from doing so.

[Xin Yu]

Sorry I never tried to build on mountains. When I wrote mountains I really meant 'food deficit terrains'.

[Dayison]

The strategy sounds great. However, what about those of us (I can't possibly be alone in this world) who's real life luck extends into the game. I seem to do okay vs. barbarians, but I can't win crap against another civ. Example: I attacked a regular horseman on it's last health in the plains, with a full strength Elite warrior and lost. This is a common occurance for me and why I avoid war at all costs. I've even had galleys sink my attacking sub. WT*?! Any suggestions?

Thanx,
Dayison

(Sorry if this sounds too much like whinning)

[randomturn]

David Weldon: I sometimes do the same thing! But the AI just falls too far behing at those levels, so those games get boring too.

Dayison -- try attacking with lots of units. Use horsemen/knights/riders primarily since they generally escape battles they're losing. Back them up with spearmen/pikemen to defend them and station in your new city, and the odd swordsman if your horsemen need a little help. Rush build a barracks in your new city and a couple of turns later your units are ready to take the next city.

[ledj]

Randomturn, great thread.
I adapted a variation of your vassal state approach in playing a deity game, on a regular size map.
The objective of the first war is to grab 6 to 8 cities from one neighbor civ. Soon after my civ had 4 cities ( all had barracks ) , I produced 10 veteran military units. By this time the AI already had about 10 cities. Hopefully two of them tied in wonder building. So about 8 cities could produce military units. Normally AI produced only regular units. I chose to play Aztec civ. After one of my uu, jaguar warrior , won a battle, my civ got into golden age. My shield production from the 4 cities almost doubled. and therefore could produce enough units to sustain the war. The first war resulted in capturing 8 cities and a production of a leader that I used to rush build a forbidden city in the center of captured cities. I then negotiated a peace treaty and obtained all technologies from this defeated civ. In the meanwhile expanded my home land to 8 cities. By the end of the first war, I had about 16 cities that should match the size of other civ.
The objective of the second war was to produce 2 to 3 leaders and to capture 6-8 cities from another neighboring civ. Some of the captured cities were sold for technologies. A size 10 city could exchange for 2 to 3 techs. Leaders were used to rush build the Sistin Chapel, Newton's University and Universal Suffrage.
After the conclusion of the second war, concentrated on building infra-structure for science and change the government to democracy. This would take your civ into the loop of tech trading. With a little bit of luck, the war effort gave me a big piece of land that contained all the strategic resources, and come of them could be exported for gold, enabling a 100% science.
The third war might not be necessary. But if a strong militaristic civ suddenly declared war (such as Russia ). It would be an opportunity to get another one or two leaders for rush building of Hoover Dam or SETI.
I missed the caravans of the Civ 2. In Civ3, war is the opportunity on deity level, and I managed a win on space race on 1410 AD
In this regard, a civ with an early golden age is attractive civ in a deity level SP game.

[wrgj]

Not the perfect strategy!

Hi all,

I just accidentally lost my long reply after hitting 'back' on my browser, so I'll summarise.

First, I'd like to talk ONLY about Deity, Huge map and 16 civs. (The only real game.) On deity, the AI starts with a 67% bonus on production and growth (requires 60% of what you need.) Also, for reference, I am playing with 14 civs on the one (large) continent, with two on a large island.

Reasons why this strategy is bad:
1) There are always several militaristic civs nearby, who build units much faster than you;
2) There are too many civs nearby, such that you simply cannot dominate everyone relatively close. Also, as it's a huge map, the distances are great enough to be too spread out if you were fighting constantly with 4 or 5 civs.
3) Everyone neighbours about 4 or 5 civs.
4) Everyone knows each other.

Thus, if you attacked everyone, you would be spread too thinly, the militaristic neighbours on the other side would also take their share for your work. There are always more neighbours who are militaristic and ready to fight (with a prod. bonus) if you neglect constant diplomacy. In summary, in a world where you can quickly dominate those around you, it can work, just as it did in Civs I and II (where you could win while BC) - but as soon as you are confronted with a large world, closely linked and teaming with civs, you're lost.

To quote the original post:
1. The AI adds cities and develops land much faster than you can.
2. It is very aggressive about building cities near your borders to hem you in.
3. It aggressively trades science, making it impossible for you to get a huge science lead.
4. Corruption in large empires slows your perimeter cities to a crawl.

In my humble opinion (and I mean this, because I do not have the time to read every post, nor try this strategy, taking the time I take to find the perfect decision for each build and each move) but I believe the best, most effective and most personally rewarding strategy is to beat them at their own game.

1) They were programmed to be expansionistic for a reason: citizens are power. By the time you dominate your neighbours, there are other civs, a little out of reach, who have 10 times the producing power (and a bigger military) than you.

2) You can develop fast. If you adopt a more focussed strategy than the AI can achieve (get key city sites, after calculating the number of turns it will take them to settle there, and get there just before) and hem them in before filling in the gaps, they curb their expansion. This way, you can also target the key resources (that you know of.) (PS It helps if you start on a river with a couple of cows to grow settlers fast!)

3) Of course you won't get a science LEAD! There are 16 civs all trading (except you ?!?) so that when one gets a new tech, all will get it soon. Thus, you have approx. 10 civs researching only a few options at any one time, which you cannot match. But why not take advantage of this!! As soon as one gets it, buy it, and sell it immediately to everyone else. You make a huge profit and everyone likes you because you gives they nice things! Then you don't need to waste your time researching, which is always pretty slow in deity.

4) Corruption is in the patch.

Just like to add, also, that the AI always tries for the wonders. If you get them, then you've wasted nearly 600 shields x 15 civs! What a bonus! I know it's hard, competing against the prod. bonus, but it's worth it! The Great Library means that you automatically get new techs, and then you sell them for several thousand gold altogether (I don't know if this is still possible after the patch) which is huge BC! It is hard - whenever I suceedded, it was with a couple of shield to spare, but the effort involved in getting it and the risk of missing was worth it. Oh - and it didn't rely on being lucky enough to get a great leader.

I must admit to adopt a perfectionist strategy takes time, and I am only around 1AD in my current game of which I talk (and the only game beyond this stage that I've bothered with.) But I have managed to get both the Great Library and the Sistine Chapel (both key wonders) with the likely prospect of JS Bach's cathedral. I successfully took over 8 cities on my borders through culture at the same time, and I got around 25 cities BC.

Trying militaristic approaches in other early games and knowing the layout of the current game I predict that it would have led to me being in a similar position in terms of size, with smaller neighbours but no infrastructure. And so how do you possibly expect to be able to beat the rest of the civs, who produce units much more quickly and who are 10 times more developped than you? Ref: David Weldon on civs not trading and waging war. Essentially, the suggested fix to the stragegy was to wait for peace to end - but this is leaving the whole 'vassal' thing and reverting to normal gameplay, and selected strikes. Notice that trade is essential.

Summary:
-------
Strategy depends on the layout of the land, your opponents, and especially your strengths. Playing a militaristic civ may lend itself to this - but it does not mean that it is the best strategy, nor does it mean that you will win. If you think this, try playing on a huge map with large continents with a non-militaristic civ. If you suceed, well... (I'm surprised) but good for you, did you enjoy it? It wasn't you only option to beat deity.

P.S. A hint for those who din't find it easier to play in peace: When you sell your world map, make sure you get theirs, and continue the process. You should get everyone's and a profit. Then you can trade world maps with everyone on any given turn, and turn a healthy profit, and they like you better. When initially changing to republic (around 1000BC) I only had 3000 gold to rush build a whole lot of things I wanted for my beloved cities, and so, did this every turn, got about 100 extra gold per turn (on top of my 250 per turn, mostly from other civs) which helped finance a few extra temples for new cities. When this was finished, I could ask for a Treaty/Alliance/Passage with just about anyone and be accepted (people get nice very quickly with such high levels of trade!)

[eMarkM]

I'm wondering how this strategy works now post-patch. They obviously targeted those that like to rush from the beginning by having cities w/ no culture automatically razed when captured. This prevents the rusher from using every city they take as another warrior factory. So how are others adapting their style for this change? I don't strictly practice the rush-from-the-start strategy, so I don't know.

e

[Sirian]

Plutarck: great post. This current patch seems to have moved in the right direction. I agree with your assessment about the loopholes in the AI, and your suggestions about fixing them. I also agree with randomturn's assessment of the sameness of the civs, in that they are all blindly expansionist. One of the best things about Civ3 is the upgrade to the AI, but there are still a few glaring holes to patch, and I hope they take the time to work on it. Companies who put care into refining their games, and keep an eye on their original vision instead of merely their bottom line, are the only ones whom I will continue to support in future.

Of all the diplomacy problems, three stand out to me:

1) The concept of civs giving away more concessions in diplomacy only when losing (and more so the more they lose) is flawed. It tilts toward the military rush too far. There is a lack of balance between honor and force. Diplomacy is the art of negotiation, and these AI's are pathetic negotiators, but ONLY when you are taking their cities. There's a complete lack of accounting for the very crucial element of humanity involved: feuding. Sometimes blood goes so bad, trust is completely wiped out, and diplomacy is closed off completely. As Plutarck explained. These civs need to find some backbone if you push them too far. No civ should keep licking boot after boot if the oppressor continues to exploit them. They should accept peace, but not continue to offer concessions, and certainly not more and more and more and more the worse their AI sliding scale says they are losing. That's just flawed.

The AI's willingness to give concessions of ANY kind should permanently end after certain kinds of betrayal. In fact, if you play by the book, honoring all your agreements, the AI should be MORE willing to give you concessions, not less.

2) The concept of military alliances having to last twenty turns makes them extremely undesirable under republic/democracy, whereas realistically, those are the types of government most likely to ally with many nations. The AI needs a better method of recognizing when a war has rightfully run its course. If you have fought hard and well against an enemy and inflicted losses on him, but have to bow out of the fight because war weariness in your lands has become oppressive, or your own forces are teetering on the verge of cracking, for your reputation to be blackened by establishing peace seems unbalanced to me. In fact, rep suffers worse under this condition than blatant, extortionistic, bald-faced lying of the sort described in some posts here, where the AI is raped for its trust, and ruthlessly betrayed, because it allows you to do that to it. There ought to be a more complex alliance system, allowing more options to choose from when forming your alliances. The one-size-fits-all 20 turns deal comes up short in many instances.

In fact, the 20 turn deal is problematic across the board. Some types of deals should last longer, some should be shorter, and there has to be a serious enforcement of these deals. Betrayals ought not to be rewarded. Some types of concessions should incur a more rigorous agreement, lasting longer and with more severe penalties for betrayal.

3) Perhaps the whole idea of giving and taking cities via pure diplomacy should be canned. It should CERTAINLY be canned for you in a particular game if you violate any treaty that involved such a dealing. That is to say, if you make a deal for 20 turns involving the AI giving you a city, and you break the deal, no civ in that game should ever again be willing to make any deals with you that involve city exchange, not even that of you giving cities to them for free.


I think this AI system has made great strides. There is a whole lot about it to like. If they can improve it some more, perhaps the game will remain fresh and exciting. If not, some of the remaining flaws and weakness may end up pigeon-holing the gameplay, as it has already done for Randomturn.

I would also very much like to see some more variation in regard to their expansionism. That the AI will continue to build more and more and more and more settlers, even after every square of eligible land on the world has been grabbed, is certainly flawed. I don't get any sense of personality from these AI's whatsoever. Where are the perfectionist civs? Why do these AI's attempt to grab the most worthless plots of land as far from their capital as possible? Some of these guys ought to be switching modes into "defensive" or other attitudes. All they do all game is look look look for somewhere else to plop a settler. They do have a warmongering mode, but the settler mode never shuts down. I have also yet to see the enemy AI's suffer any serious penalties on the diplomatic front for betraying their agreements with you.

And what about the round-robin wonder building? I'm starting to think it's a flaw to allow switching from one wonder to another. It's certainly unrealistic. If you go for a wonder, you should have to go for THAT wonder, and so should the AI's. The sameness of them all switching to wonder building at about the same point, and cascading all the ancient wonders within a few turns of one another, is getting really old. It should matter if you get to the tech first. You get a lead, and don't have some latecomer stealing it away from you, because they started the Pyramids (they ALL start the pyramids) some twenty or thirty turns before you started in on your Hanging Gardens. Likewise, building a Palace somewhere, and switching to a wonder later, is... well, I don't like it. The AI's don't do it, but if you don't get a head start, you won't get anything. Right now, a wonder is just another big improvement, and the wonder building from game to game is more vanilla than ever, more of THE SAME. As different as the landmasses are, and the resource layouts, the tech tree is a little too much the same from game to game now, and so is the wonder building. You can pick and choose one to get, but every civ on the planet immediately starting a city on every wonder in the game the moment they get the tech (or nearly so, some exceptions in the early game), even if they have zero chance of winning the race, is problematic. Is this really what was intended?

If you had to commit solely to a specific wonder, and were given back a portion of your investment (as gold, perhaps?) if you failed in the race, would make wonders more than the interchangable parts they are now. I certainly agree with randomturn on that: if you lose the race and are forced to dump 400 shields into a minor building or military unit, it's enough of a penalty to twist the game play away from what it ought to be like. Building a wonder in the real history was a matter of a civ making a huge commitment to some particular grand project, not of all of them starting the pyramids, then doling out the other wonders among the runners up for that grand prize. The cascade effect is just another concept where the lack of intelligence within the AI breaks down and shows through. The AI needs to be smarter about building wonders, just as much as wonder building itself needs to be made better. Right now, it's just a pure brute force approach, every civ pushing for every wonder, and relying on cascade to get something, for at least some of them. So what if the others completely falter as a result? Who cares, as long as at least one or two make it out strong to oppose the player. Well, that's a problem. What can be done about it? I'm not sure.


AI sameness is what eventually bored me for civ1 and (much more quickly, due to lingering civ1 burnout) also civ2. In Civ1, on certain dates, on the higher difficulty level, every civ on the planet would automatically declare war on you. It never varied, game to game. Come that date, you would be going to war. That just got to be so old after a while. There were ZERO options for playing to maintain peace, and zero variation in the AI's strategy. So every game got to have the same flavor after a while, even if you tried to vary it. Civ III looks at first glance to have resolved this major problem, but on closer inspection, the AI still has some glaring faults. I don't plan to adopt strategies that are specifcally aimed at exploiting loopholes in the AI. I'm getting my money's worth, so on the whole I'm quite pleased, but I do hope Firaxis keeps a strong commitment to upgrading the AI, and especially to closing down the sorts of exploitation that can unravel the entire weave of the tapestry they are trying to deliver.


- Sirian

[Dayison]

I've tried this strategy and variations of it. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but civs remain defiant to the last city. I end up having to annihilate them completely.

[eMarkM]

One other thing I've noticed in the patch is the AI DOES seem a bit more defiant. Instead of taking two cities and they give me all their tech, I have to take 3 or 4 before they even come to the table. Often this means that "vassalization" is a one time deal. You'll get their tech alright, but by the time they cave in, you've weakened them so much that they've been marginalized and can't be "worked" again for tech, just small amounts of gold.

e

[Heliodorus]

I do find it troubling that the AI civs will cave after incessant warmongering.

I think an interesting idea (i.e. - don't know if it's remotely implementable) would be for Civs that are on the verge of becoming utterly hopeless vassals to surrender their Civs to another AI, preferably one of the leaders in the world (assuming they have contact). So instead of bowing to the human and making him a superpower, they bow to the enemy of their enemy.

Alternatively, what if the soon-to-be vassal Civ simply capitulates and cedes all of its cities to you, and leave YOU to deal with the corruption and happiness issues?

Just some random musings.

[ledj]

Does anyone has a good strategy to win on deity level with huge map, 16 civs? Please enlighten me.

[Oho]

Originally posted by sunshine
Can you please post a save game in which this works for you? Maybe my copy of Civ III is making Deity work differently, but I tend to meet an enemy civ in about 2250 BC,
--shiny

Ave !!!!

Likewise, I have not been able to make the Vassal idea to work. The only Deity games I have survived (lost both through space race) I played as Persian with something akin to Vassal startegy but not entirely. Besides how do you conquer a city right after establishment since size one cities are destroyed when occupied. I have not followed the game closely enough to know whether an additional defensive unit is created before the size grows to two.

My experince has also been that waging an early war is immensely difficult with the AI civilzations having such overwhelming production bonus and the imminent risk of revolts in the cities you just captured.

- Oho -

[randomturn]

The patch has made it so that size 1 cities are now destroyed if they have 0 culture value when they are captured. For the purposes of implementing the vassal strategy, this change need have little effect for two reasons:
1) destroying enemy cities brings them to the bargaining table just as surely as capturing them, though this makes for a slower game than just capturing them.
2) you can "chase the capitol city" (the one with the star by its name). The enemy's capitol is NOT destroyed when it is captured, and is immediately relocated toi another city (which will also not be destroyed when it is captured).

As for vassalizing on a big map, yes, it makes for a longer game since other civs are further away. Everything about a big map makes for a longer game, sothis shouldn't be surprising. If you want to get the hang of vassalizing before you try to use it in a big game, try it using it under the easiest conditions: smallest map, military civ with early fast UU (e.g., aztec, zulu, chinese), lots of civs, pangaea, maximum ocean coverage (to accelerate meeting other civs).

I'm not playing much these days, so I'm not here much. Game needs to be patched to address mod-making, late game tedium, and play-balance issues. When that happens I'll make some killer mods. Cheers.

[XCalibyr]

This'll sound pathetic, but...

... can anyone provide a 3 (or 1, 2, 4, 5, any)-step approach to beat Chieftain?

I just got the game a few days ago. My record is 2 losses, 1 win, and it was a crappy win - 4 opponents on a standard map. I destroyed one, but didn't do anything against the others and got a histograph victory in 2050. Like I said, crap.

I've never played Civ1 or Civ2, or SMAC, so I wasn't coming in with any knowledge (except my first encounter with the game at Sirian's Great Library, looking for things to do after he stopped with his Diablo 2 write-ups. Thanks for the heads-up, Sirian!).

I just want to be able to beat Chieftain on any size map, with the max number of opponents for that map.

Thanks in advance for any help. This should be an easy one for most of you to answer.