12-11-2001 00:07									#1
	My deity strategies part 1 Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Monarch is just too easy for me: that's why I've decided to go play the game on deity (and skip the step in between). Finally, I am able to get my butt kicked each and every time! Yippie!

First of all, let's describe the direct implications of deity compared to, say, monarch.

-The second citizen in any city becomes unhappy. ouch!
-The AI's start with 2 settlers (I noticed this by looking at a couple of histograms)
-AI's seem to produce more than they should be able to and thus produce faster.
-AI's research faster.
-AI's are more agressive and are less willing to make a fair trade with you
L>However, people from "your" general race, are -less- -more- willing to trade with you, making it just about even (still a little bit unfair for you though)

When we throw all these factors in a can, shake it, what do we get? A whole angry lot of AI's who eagerly trade with each other and expand/research/produce/attack like crazy! Also, your people are generally always unhappy.

Now, what I've come up with, is the following.

First thing I do when I start a deity game is see if the prime spot is good. If not, you can kiss your victory goodbye. What is a good spot?

A spot which:
1-has at least 2 2-food-1-shield squares around it
2-has preferably got a wheat/cow resource around it. (btw funny thing is cows became the way they are now because of intelligent human domestication and breeding programs; being able to find such cows 4000BC as opposed to finding a brown, slim, non-always-milk producing small "moo!" is evidence of either atlantis people or Eric von Däniken's human-aliens doing all the work for us! )
3-has preferably got some luxury resource within 3 squares
4-is NOT on an island. If you live alone on your own island you are unable to trade with the AI's for a long long time and by the time you discover Map Making they're attacking you with knights sent on caravels by loads of angry AI's knowing you're sitting on some kind of resource they want to get their greedy hands on!
As soon as you discover you're on an island, you had better just restart altogether, unless you like having your butt kicked after 2000 years of isolationist and peaceful living. And no, when -his- knight is attacking -your- warrior, it will win
5-is thus on a large continent with at least 2 AI's so they can make war not love with each other if you're lucky.

1, 2 and 4 (->5) are essential to winning the short term survival game and thus winning the game altogether.

Let's divide the game into some pieces.

-First, there's the initial survival race

By the time you have built your first settler the AI will have three or four. How come? The AI starts out with 2 settlers (by the sneeze of Allah, what an advantage!) and produces just an itsy-bitsy faster (as far as I can see (boy would I love to get my hands on a debug version!)) AI's expansion almost seems logaritmic. Ouch!
This very first settler had better find a site which is exactly 5 squares off' your capital and have at least 1 2-food-1-shield squares. This is the best solution for the long term, as it will -eventually- grow (after or during the resource gathering war - see below) If you chose to play this game on a standard sized map/8 AI's you should have already contacted at least 2 or 3 of them. What 'll happen then is obvious; after you built your second city there should be anywhere around 10 cities on your continent, of which 2 are yours. (NOT building the second one is a serious disadvantage) Don't think you will be able to ward of the AI from a piece of land by "securing" a certain pass, as asking him to "leave now or declare WAR!" will most certainly result in the AI declaring war on you as he can produce more (and faster?) military. Trust me on this one
Anyways, by the time you have built your second city (I always name it "What?!!? NO MULTIPLAYER??" ) you will probably see just 1 more good spot to build a new city. What to do now depends entirely on your mentality and on the initial spot the Civ3 gods have given you (Sacrifice a cow before any game or just plain forget about it ).

You can now
A) let the city's you have grow to a certain size, make the AI's happy and attempt a cultural absorbation of nearby cities (very unlikely and very random)
B) wage WAR against nearby small cities.
B it has to "b", as the AI will barf you to death in the A-end anyway. Luckily, despotism allows us to sacrifice citizens to finish military units. Pump out 2 or 3 archers (you should already have 1 by now) and wage war against -ONE- opponent. Believe me, one is hard enough. Try to take over all his cities by flooding him with archers; as soon one of your cities reaches size 2 rush-sacrifice in the city to build another one. If you succeed in taking all or most of his cities (he will most likely respawn) you have a far-away-weak Charlie and 1 or 2 friendlies nearby (given that you did not screw up)

-Second, there's the resource gathering -war-.

If you survived this far you're already one hell of a Civ3 player/one friggin' lucky bastard!
You will most probably find out you have neither horses nor (more importantly), iron. Thus, you will need to wage war to gather it and bring it to your capital! You -will- be beaten to a cruel terrible death (with a spoon) if you are incapable of producing a more handsome military than the AI's. More importantly, you will need that very same military to be able to take the cities within reach of -resource-. And the continent should be pretty much flooded with cities by now (mostly 1000BC)

If you guys can 'dig' this 'sjit' I will tell you more about my strategies in an upcoming part. I will tell you about the differences of playing the different civs, their UU's, abilities and which wonders to build to survive the onslaught. I will give you a "turn(time)table" so you know what is best to build in what situation and when to build what. Every resource/turn lost doing nothing is another advantage to the AI!

No, I have yet to beat deity but I can assure you I have been pretty damn close on some occasions. Also, this post should make 'someone' change his arrogant mind concerning mere 'Settlers'! Yes, I donnot post often, but when I do it makes some sense. I have been playing this game ever since I was able to reach the keyboard so I'm pretty sure what I'm talking about.

-Zsz