Here is an easy strategy to win at deity.

This is intended for beginning civers who have
not been able to beat the game at the Deity level.

Play on the World Map, as the Americans. I like Raging Hordes, just to keep things
interesting, but the Barb setting doesnt matter much to this strategy.

Found your Capital, Washington, right where it starts on the first turn. Build a defender,
(two if raging hordes) then more settlers.

Move your other settler a few squares inland to the river, and build your second city right
on the river. Build a defender or two, and then settlers.

Keep building settlers and moving them just a few squares away and building cities until
you have eight. Then stop and build roads and irrigation for your eight cites.

While this is going on, direct your research towards Monarchy and Pottery. As soon as
you are able to, switch to Monarchy, and start to build the Hanging Gardens in
Washington. After you have researched Monarchy and Pottery, go for Trade.

As soon as you have researched Trade, start building caravans in your other cities and
send them to Washington to help build “Wonders”.

Once you have built the Hanging Gardens, start to build whatever other “Wonder” you
can.
The important ones to build first are the ones that boost science, and the ones that boost
happiness. If you have to choose, build the science project.

You can now expand and build more cities, just keep going building a settler in each of
your frontier cities, and then switching to caravans. Continue expanding until you have
about twenty cities. Then switch them all to building caravans. Just caravans, no
improvements. Only build improvements in the Washington. You will need to constantly
monitor your “Attitude Advisor” , and adjust the happiness as required.
You will probably need to build a temple in most of your cities when they grow to size
six or so.

The idea here is to continue building as many “ Wonders” as you can. You will find that
once you get past the early ones, you can just about build all the ones you want. I would
say that the critical ones, the ones you MUST build, are Colossus, Copernicus, Issac
Newton, The United Nations, and of course you have to build the Apollo Program.

You should also build as many of as you can among The Oracle, Michelangelos Chapel,
Bachs Cathedral, Leonardos Workshop, Hoover Dam. You can get by without some of
these, but the more of them you build the easier it will be for you.

You want to make peace with everyone, giving them whatever they ask for until you
build the United Nations. Then you can stop giving them anything, they will still make
peace with you. You NEVER want to be at war, with any one. That way you can keep on
building caravans, instead of Military units. It is a good idea to have a few Knights or
similar units around , just in case. There are always barbarians to deal with. And later in
the game, they come at you with Tanks, so be ready for that.

Switch to Demo as early as you can, and build Shakespeares Theater. Once you have
built Shakespeares, you can set your luxuries way up for a few , and Washington will
celebrate and grow to its maximum size. When you build a sewer and supermarket, you
can celebrate again. You want Washington to be at least size 20. You can leave the other
cities at size 8, that is all they need.

When you can, build factories. Stagger the building of them so you still have a constant
flow of Caravans to Washington. Direct your research so that you will get Space Flight as
soon as possible. You want to make sure to avoid researching the techs that obsolete your
“Wonders”, until you are ready to.

When you have built the Apollo Program, build a space ship with 17 structurals, 4 fuel
components, and 4 engine components. Have Washington build the components, rushing
them in a turn each by disbanding caravans as needed. Dont spend your cash yet. Have
each of seventeen different cities build one “structural”. As the first three finish, set
them to build one each of the three different “modules” .

The last thing you will need to research is “Fusion Power”, after you have researched
“Super Conductor”. At just about the same time as you get “Fusion Power”, your cities
should be close enough to finishing the spaceship for you to rush build the remaining
parts in a single turn.

Check out Wm Keenan's Barbarian Paper for full barb details, but the highest unit rebellions are with Partisans (or Fanantics) and Cavalry, or Riflemen and Artillery. You decide which you would rather see.

Disbanding caravans gives you 25 shields to add to production. Having them help build a wonder and then switching wonder production to a SS part gives you 50 shields per caravan.

If you streamline your tech path for Monarchy/HG/ICS/Commie you can get Demo inside of 20 techs and build the SoL for Communism. A tech path might look like this:

Alp,Bro,CoL,Cer,Mon, Pot,Mas,Cur,Wri,Hor, Tra,Whe,Cst,Lit,War, Eng,Ban,Inv,Feu,Dem...

quote: The ones you MUST build: Colossus, Copernicus, Newton, The United Nations, and the Apollo Program. You should also build as many of as you can among The Oracle, Michelangelos, Bachs, Leonardos, Hoover Dam. You can get by without some of these

Maybe I don't know much, but I disagree with just about all of the above (sorry if I seem harsh, 99% of my posts are in Off-Topic).

I have never built the Colussus or HG, and only occasionally get Coperny & Newton. I agree that the Oracle is not important.

Instead I build a military unit or two and temples and keep my cities small (and/or hire Elvises) until Mike's chapel. That one is permanent and saves you huge bucks. Bach's is also great and is totally unique in one hugely important way- it counts AFTER the military unhappiness.

------------------
April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

Another OCC tip I picked up from Paul or some other annoyingly clever person.

I agree with most of nc's post. With an ICS approach and HG & SoL most of the other wonders are superfluous. And it is just about the easiest way to win vs the AI. Conquest or Alpha Centauri.

Sten Sture, yes, Barbs do use tanks. Unless those were funny looking SUV's ! I just saw them last night in a game. The Barbs were going after
the AI Mongols with tank after tank. I swear on a dead rat!

The reason reason I like Communism is for the UN Wonder, not the Govt. I always stay in Demo once I get it.

n.c. You are right about SETI, I forgot to add that one. Thanks. And the other Wonders I mention are only critical for this particular strategy. (I also build as many as I have time for, just to keep them away from the AI.)

The United Nations should not be necessary since by that time you've almost finished anyway, but I often prefer communism over democracy to prevent the loss of shields and mistakes with sending units out.
Makes easier play, it's not necessarily better.

- Rib -

----------------------------
trying out the edit function

Personally I'm still of the opinion that the easiest win at deity comes from OCC on a good map - you don't need to memorise the Paulicy just have read it through.

Good civin'

------------------
____________
Scouse Git[1]

------------------
April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

And I think it is true that there was a large Barb city nearby, though I am not certain of that.

I play "plain old" CIV II, not one of the newer versions. I also bought a copy of the Multi Player version, but it never ran right on my machine, so I scrapped it and went back to the original.

I would think this strategy would be easier than OCC for two reasons, number one being that you have 19 other cities feeding the big city with caravans/freights all game long. Towards the space race you will have something like 160 or more caravans stockpiled. The second reason is that you usually have no close neighbors on the world map, all the AI civs seem to start on the other continents,(except for the Sioux), and they are always at peace with you.

one defender lets the city grow onto the size of 2, as soon as it gets 3, civil unrest will appear. and as the construction of a settler takes forever...

I use to build 2 warriors, they're bad defenders but do their martial law for few production cost and time

Playing on a random map, you`ll need more cities. Some will have to worry about your countersrike force just in case the mongols or carthagians show up. (I simply HATE giving tribute. And I don´t use to do things I hate)

Mike´s Chapel is essential at deity (among a few other wonders). You won´t be able to keep up early republic or demo without it. And you will need early rep and demo to arrive AC before 1900.

quote: <font size=1>Originally posted by Chainsaw on 08-31-2000 01:39 PM</font> I never tested that, but I doubt so few cities will be enough to give you the needed science output? Correct me if I´m wrong, but only eight cities with the size of eight (Except the SSC)?? That won´t do, won´t it???

Depending on how you go about it, 1 city will provide more than enough science to reach AC. Playing the One City Challenge (OCC), quite a few people have managed pre-1800 landings. With a near-ideal city site near your starting point (not especially common), at least a couple have managed pre-1650 landings. And if you follow the Paulicy on Paul's website, many people have managed to win the game before 2020. As for myself, once (and still in heart) an ultraexpansionist, I have managed a 1705AD landing on a random, small map, diety, raging hoardes game after spending some time learning the concepts.

As with any strategy, whether OCC, Perfectionist, SSC with feeder cities (as described at outset of this thread), ICS, or other concepts that you can find scattered throughout this forum, if you can understand why it works, you can eventually make it work for you.

------------------
April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

quote: Originally posted by Drago Sinio on 08-30-2000 09:31 AM I feel like one of those midwestern farmers who claims his cow was abducted by aliens, or in this case Barb tanks I really, really did see them!

I thought I posted a reply to this a few days ago, but those damn aliens must have swipped it! I should have noted that a barb city could theoretically account for the existence of an Armor unit. The good news is that Mobile warfare ends seaborn pirate units so no tanks will show up in a transport by your wonder city.

How bout it in OCC?Growth,both fast and early, is pretty vital for OCC.Without it....

quote: Originally posted by SCG on 08-31-2000 02:09 PM Depending on how you go about it, 1 city will provide more than enough science to reach AC. Playing the One City Challenge (OCC), quite a few people have managed pre-1800 landings. With a near-ideal city site near your starting point (not especially common), at least a couple have managed pre-1650 landings. And if you follow the Paulicy on Paul's website, many people have managed to win the game before 2020. As for myself, once (and still in heart) an ultraexpansionist, I have managed a 1705AD landing on a random, small map, diety, raging hoardes game after spending some time learning the concepts.

OK, but you must consider two things:
First, in OCC you buils Shakes, that means no further expenses for happiness improvements, luxuries down to zero, and no other WoWs after you´ve built Shakes (except Apollos and maybe Darwins). You can´t do that playing with more than one city.

Second, playing with more than one city you´ve to spread your ressources among all your cities for defense, keeping order in the cities etc. And with all your cities being size eight (except SSC), angry neighbors around and the fact that they have room to expand, grow fat and build the spaceship eventually before you, it seems kinda hard with just a few size-eight cities to cope with that challenge.