Foolproof Strategy to Beat Civilization 2 on Any Level?

Question

I'm curious to know if there is a foolproof way of beating Civ 2 everytime I play. I can do this on the first level and usually the second, but what about Deity level? Assume we're talking about conquest and not the space race.

Answer 1

• Expand, expand, expand. Upside to this you get a lot of cities and can make a lot of units to keep attacking/guarding. Downside is your economy isn't the greatest, and you have to rely on continuing to attack/pressure the enemy into giving you money/resources.

OR

• Turtle till you got large army and slowly expand taking over cities slowly, the downside to this is that you stay at war for forever which sucks. If you go this route try to only be at war with 1 race at a time, even if you have to pay tribute to someone. And make sure to destroy them completely, take over any good cities, and destroy the others as it hurts your economy and a weak city is just saying attack me please.

I am referring mainly to Civ 2 here, but this works in Civ 4 mostly as well. I haven't gotten 5 yet so unsure of that.

EDIT: Oh in Civ 2 my very favorite unit was stealth bombers once you got them, just bomb the hell out of the enemy, there is nothing they can do when you send 50+ bombers at one city, then wait 1 turn to repair and go against another city. It got to the point I always had half my bombers repairing (i.e waiting a couple of turns) and the rest attacking.

Once you get normal bombers things are all uphill from there.

Answer 2

As someone who easily managed Civ2 on Deity level (unlike Civ3 and Civ4, where the AI already beat me up on King) I would like to add a little aspect that I remeber from the good old days in addition to Vipers answer : The Artillery unit in Civ2 is incredibly powerful. I remember stomping over several enemy cities in one round with one artillery (railroads available).