I just played an OCC game on Deity+5, Barbarian Wrath, 7 civs. What fun!

The AI is pretty competitive at this level. Their cities grow explosively,
they expand like mad, and their research keeps pace with a full-bore SSC
with all the science Wonders. Four of them stayed in the game the whole
way, one got destroyed near the end, and the sixth lagged.
The AI built every Wonder in the game except for the ones I grabbed
and I just barely got the Colossus and Darwin's.

The beaker cost of research for the human player is substantially higher
than on Diety and the AI's appears to be less. Their production costs
and food requirements are also ridiculously low. By the end game,
some of their cities had populations in the 90s.

Pollution was horrible. Merely one hazard icon would cause a skull,
not just occasionally, but every single turn. I had to build an MT,
Hydro Plant, and Recycling Center.

Another weird thing: the tech tree was more screwed up than I have
seen before. I just couldn't get the sequences I normally do.
I ended up with nearly every tech in the book.

I won, barely.

I got Space Flight in 1240 and built APOLLO in 1260 but the AI were right behind me.
I had a ton of cash from 5 generous allies so I built a fast ship:
15-3-3-1-1-1, finally got Fusion Power and launched in 1630 (arrival date 1645).

The Russians built a big-ass boat, but without FP they landed in 1646.
The English hit 1646, the Babylonians 1648, and the Egyptians 1649.

The war that followed the launches was awesome - bombers, howies, armor, missles.
I was wedged in between the Babylons and the Egyptians and they warred all
around, but I kept my alliances in tact by giving them whatever
they asked for except Fusion Power -- in the end that saved my landing.

In addition, there was a sea of red fanatics and artillery occupying an
entire penisula, where the French used to be.

It was truly fun.

samson

P.S.

If you don't know what I mean by "Super Deity" or Deity+5
see the "Super-Deity" thread in CIV2/GENERAL.

I checked this out last night, for the first time, but like to stick with one thing at a time, i.e. the early landing discussion. Sounds like great fun though, and you've got to love the discovery of how simple it is to set up, by just inserting your favorite names for higher levels into the game file! One question about super is how fast do the AI learn? Could super deity be the answer to racing through the tech tree for an early landing or are things just a little too dicey?

The AI learns faster and keeps up in the science race. But the penalty
on the human civ is stiff. I played on a small map where the minimum cost
of advances after 20 is tech# X 19 in Deity. In Deity+5 it was tech# X 24.
Does the difference (5) equal the +5? I don't know. If so, it might
be 29 on a medium map. In this case, it was > 25% increase in research
cost. I did get a lot techs from the AI throughout the game but I didn't
have embassies to monitor them. I just gave all to the Key Civ and a few
to others to keep the cash coming in. I don't think this is the answer
to early landing though. Too much potential to lose control of the game.