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!

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

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

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.

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

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

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

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Scouse Git[1]

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

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.

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.

With that said, it is nice to see that others have problems winning at Diety level. I was starting to get the idea that I was the worst Civer around.

I am starting to play the Size 5 Strategy. It will take some practice. I like to try to combine that with a SSC. No luck yet at Diety but I'll get there. Unhappiness and all of its ills are the toughest part. I used to shy away from the Barbs but I am surprised at how often they fall when attacked.

The bottom line...To fully enjoy this game, don't even think about using the cheat menu to win. It's a lot more fun to get your butt kicked a while and then legitimately win because you learned how to beat the game through all of those bad losses. It's the challenge of this game that is so much fun.

Caravans are simply the most important unit you can build. There used to be a saying around here.......
"build caravans.... when you cant' think of anything good to build ,build more caravans".

Warriors are splendid for martial law.
Hanging Gardens and or The Great Wall will make expansion better.
Suns if your going to go conquering.
SSC is great for any style of play.
Happy wonders make expansion and growth easier.
If lots of water, naval wonders are very important.

Learn to use those bottle necks, let the ai, waste its resources on you fortified mountain tops.

Try to avoid taking on all the civs at once. If your going to crush someone, do it, dont' go in half assed.

Don't build the library it only slows you down........ instead build Marcos.

Decide early and stick with it, if your going for AC or for world domination, if you try to do both you may find yourself wasting resources better spent in the other direction.

Try not to let civs get out of control...... pretend your american, and slap them around when they misbehave.

Dont build improvements that wont' reap benefits immediately, those shields are better placed on settlers or even better, CARAVANS

Definitely use wltkd to grow, saves time and energy, although some may say its a crutch for the weaker player, LOL just ignore them.

Use important military windows of opportunity to your advantage.

Keep on expanding , real estate is important

Build those caravans

OK thats enough for now, and remember one thing, its all moot once you start MP ing, humans are far craftier........ good luck and keep on civin

Good to see you back WAR.

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quote: Definitely use wltkd to grow, saves time and energy, although some may say its a crutch for the weaker player, LOL just ignore them.

"WLTKD"?

quote: Originally posted by kcbob on 01-08-2001 08:38 AM 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.

I have to disagree. As a newbie trying to get to Deity, I find save/load hugely useful -- not for winning, but for learning. It gives me the chance to see how two or three different choices have an impact on the game, and that helps me formulate strategy. Given how long a game takes, and how varied games can be, this is much more effective than just losing, starting again, and hoping the occasion arises to experiment with "option B" next time.

Still, it goes without saying that you haven't really won until you've won without save/reload -- but as an educational tool, it's invaluable.

Just play the game and hang around these forums, especially the strategy and multiplayer ones, and you'll pick up lots of good stuff and kick the AIs' butts all over the map or land on AC with only one city in the 1800s.

WLTXD = We Love The X Day, where X can be:

- Leader (L), when generally speaking of celebrating
- King (K), celebrating under monarchy
- Consul (C), you get the idea
- President (P)

quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly on 01-10-2001 05:16 AM I have to disagree. As a newbie trying to get to Deity, I find save/load hugely useful -- not for winning, but for learning.

I would have thought that a lot of your learning would have been done before you tackled Deity level. Oh, wait. Now I understand your statement. Yes, it would be useful but as it was pointed out to me, you might get into some bad habits without realizing it. Some day, you'll have to give it up. I just decided the sooner the better. My brother-in-law still does it to excess and it drive me crazy to watch him!

After using some of the tips here and doing things such as landing a spaceship in the 1880s (despite some huge tactical and strategic errors) I can say with confidence that the game can be beaten regularly (even routinely) on deity. Then you have to seek further challenges (scenarios or self limitations) or go into multiplayer.

One point on raging hordes-- I generally like barbarians as a source of cash and NON units. After a time you can predict where they will appear and deal with them to an advantage.

Likewise on the higher playing level. The AI researching better means that in the early game at least they might have techs worth stealing/trading for.

Being a perfectionist, i try to cap my cities at a certain size, thus reducing my micromanagement, but also putting more emphasis on my trading empire.

I do agree that the more land you have, the less land your enemies will have. However, i do not place cities just for the sake of covering territory. I look for the BEST possible locations and then micromanage my ass off. I prefer not to waste any shields nor do i like wasting any resources, especially trade.

Sometimes this leaves me vulnerable in games as then my defenses are not quite up to surviving a prolonged siege, but against the ai, i am willing to take my chances Humans, as i have been learning over and over again, are very tricky and sense weakness. I lack killer instince which is lethal in this game. Thus in MP i am usually waaaaay behind.

However, against the ai, you can win with any assortment of styles and amount of cities, and i prefer as few as possible, other wise i get overwhelmed.

While i do agree its nice to have cities, my personal preference is to build cities with lots of specials in them. I find this makes the cities far more productive as long as there is enough grass around to grow.

I am not one to build around lots of plains or in a mountain zone etc, just to connect my cities. I would rather build roads, and then micromanage my butt off. Not too mention the game turns don't take nearly as long this way

quote: Originally posted by Mercantile on 01-10-2001 07:38 PM I lack killer instince which is lethal in this game.

Exactly my problem! I can keep up, but when it comes to finishing the other guy off, it just doesn't happen...

Space - the final frontier!

quote: Originally posted by Carolus Rex on 01-11-2001 03:43 AM Exactly my problem! I can keep up, but when it comes to finishing the other guy off, it just doesn't happen... Carolus

wargaming principal # 7, when you have an opponent down, KICK him until he stops squirming.

quote: Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola on 01-11-2001 07:37 PM wargaming principal # 7, when you have an opponent down, KICK him until he stops squirming.

This comes only as number 7?!

Which are the other 6? And exactly how do you kick him? With the tip of the boot, the side or do you just stamp him with the heel?

Regarding space travels, I guess they're simply too sophisticated and difficult to comprehend for the mongolian hordes! Better sit firmly in that saddle, War4boys!

quote: Originally posted by Marko_Polo Could someone kindly offer me some tips what I should do differently? And for that cheating question, what's your way?

I also went a long time trying to win at Deity on the large map with raging hordes and seven civs.
I used to always go for the Hanging Gardens to solve this problem although now I prefer to use temples with entertainers when neccessary until Michelangelos is available. Anyway I find one or the other is almost essential.
A few tips for the early part of the game that got me past the ‘can’t win at Deity’ stage whatever the strategy are:
· Use a few moves to get those first couple of cities in the best place.
· Build a few roads straight away and keep building them in all populated squares as soon as possbe.
· Go to Monarchy as soon as you can.
· Open a hut or two before you build a city to get a NONE unit or two to explore and open as many other huts as possible. Preferably in the vicinity of another civ so any units you get are also NONE and the Barbs are on someone else’s doorstep.
· Set traps for Barb leaders with two move units. You can soon tell where the barbs repeatedly appear.
· Buy enemy cities early on with the proceeds if possible. Move your capital to make this cheaper if necessary and send the dip in from the side nearest your capital.
· Don’t forget to keep demanding tribute unless you are very vulnerable. This also helps with the above.
· Build cities on hills for defence when possible.
· Build near huts before you open them if you can; no barbs.
· Open huts with the first move of a two move unit; it might escape or attack a single barb.
· Send a trireme as soon as you get them with a dip around all coasts to pick of huts near the shore. With any luck you get little colonies across the map; very useful later.
· None of these are new of course and they dont all directly relate to the happiness problem; but together I find they can help to give an early edge against all the AI’s production advantages at Diety.
Richard

I'm about to finish my very first deity/raging game and I didn't use the save/load-cheat! Last time I played was as emperor and used save/load cheat to an excess to see how high I could get my score (was about 13200) I only loaded when I wanted to try different strategy for learning purpose. For example, I found out that building Mike's INCREASED my UNHAPPINESS problem severely!!! No joking! I'll explain it later So I had to load and build SoL instead.

I started with a small random map, medium land masses as continent (I got two continents in my game) and 7 civs. I very successfully utilized Dave's Infinite City Strategy. Now the year is 1160 AD and there is only one English city left which I'll bribe when my dip reaches it. My only improvements (granary, temple, colosseum and library and now building university) are in my capital. Then I got Copernicus and Colossus there. Other wonders are HG, Mike's and Leo. Captured wonders are Pyramids, Lighthouse and GL (all that AI managed to build). I changed to commie when I got the statue and after discovering leadership I changed to fundy. I have over 70 cities now.

I don't know if anyone has discovered this but by the time I got 26 2-sized cities and got bored of random cities rioting and moving warriors in and out of cities to make them content again I made this invention. By moving ALL military units away from the city and having the HG ALWAYS makes the first of the two original black pirates to a happy one. This is enough to keep the city content and not rioting. One happy and one black face, it's kinda funny to see them together If the city grew to 3 I just turned the third into entertainer and in many cases the city began to celebrate (!!) and I got the trade benefits of republic.

This worked very well until I built the Mike's. I suffered from severe riots as typically my 1. citizen turned into content and second red. Only after I turned into commie I put all the units back to the city (they were standing around my cities to protect them from barbs) so I could enjoy the double martial law. Then building Mike's was a good idea!

I was quite amazed to see how much I could achieve with my 2-sized cities.. I typically build a lot of warriors so that I could get musketeers with Leo. I also found out that after discovering gun powder I still could produce warriors in the cities which were already building them if I didn't change the production. I rush-bought them all the time and managed to get a huge musketeer army to conquer to world. It was so fun to load a ship full or warriors and when they landed on the enemy coast they were all musketeers Only after I discovered feudalism I lost the ability to build warriors because of the automatic production update to pikemen.

The game without improvements is totally different than any civ game I've played before and it was fun to play! Thanks Dave for your ICS-manual! It's also much more exiting and fun playing when not using save/load-cheat!

Another Apolytoner arrives in the halls of Mt. Olympos.

The happy face/black hat sounds intriguing. Guess I'll have to mock up some size twos over the week end to try to figure out what's going on.

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Scouse Git[1]

I tried the ICS last night but these RAGING BARBARIANS keep picking off my poor GREEN phalanx(es) and my cities keep turning red.

I haven't made it past Emperor yet, but I have my fingers crossed!

Jim, good luck for your next deity game! Barbs didn't bother me so much because I built so many cities and they only appear from empty spaces, except pirates. Actually I hoped more of them because of the 150 leader capture bonus. You never can have too much money, can you? (At least at the early stages of the game)

I conquered most cities with musketeers and diplos. I fortified my musketeer to the rough terrain (especially mines so that AI couln't use them) around the city one per tile and let AI attack them and lose his units. I isolated the city from the rest of enemy empire to stop him sendind more troops. If there were city walls I sabotaged them first. Usually that would take 1-3 dips. Then my musketeer was good enough to kill phalanxes/archers.

If the city size dropped to 1 I just bribed it for a very low price. Sometimes I would approach a city with say two musketeers and a dip, attack it twice to drop the size of the city so that I could buy it for a lower price. Then I sold the improvements to get more money.

However..... we have grasped nucleur technology I would personally be more than happy to give you a demonstration