*This is my final upload. I am quitting Caesar III I have learnt a lot from the maps uploaded by many good players and hope to teach what I can to the community before I leave.
The God Strategy: Abusing gods in a way you never know
The Basics:
“In order to receive 2nd or above blessings from the gods, you must drop their favor to at least “displease” before you pull it back up to “exalted”. You will never receive any more blessings if you keep them “exalted” all the time. In order to reach “exalted” level, you need to host a festival to honor that god within 12 months. Play with this yo-yo relationship to maximize your game.”
---Found curved on some tome somewhere
“Never play fair with the gods. Be bias…very ridiculously bias…to those gods that are useful to you, especially in the early game”
---As written in The art of god
“Control the gods and you control your game"
---7 habits of highly effective governors
The beginning:
Don’t immediately build temples. Instead, let the mood of the gods drop to “displease” 1st. Once they are “displease”, build 1 temple for all the gods except mercury and mars. Instead, build 4 temples for mercury and mars each. Hold a festival for mercury and mars.
Wait for a few months, you will eventually receive guardian spirit and a free granary worth of food. The food and festival will ensure a healthy city mood which is great for attracting immigrants. Mar’s spirit ensure that you don’t need to waste any money on defense for the time being. (Don’t count on Ceres blessing, her blessing is only good if you got a shitload of farms. And Don’t even bother wasting your funds on farms…get those workers to start your industries asap.)
Do not host any festivals for the other gods (why waste good money?), especially Neptune (at least not till you have set up the trap for him)
Abusing Neptune:
“Abusing Neptune is the key to success”
---Caesar VVVIIIII
Now this is the key of the strategy. Look for the exports that generate a lot of returns. Never ever export raw material or food. Their returns are just too low. Just focus on one or two products. Overproduce it like mad. Your goal is to have a full warehouse for each of your expansive exports. By the time you fill them up, it should be near the end of 2nd or third year. Now here is the fun part. Piss off Neptune. Tear down his temples if you must. Make him “displeased”. The skill is to time it such that he is “displeased” at around july, then build extra temples for him and host a festival to make him “exalted” at around December. If you time it right, you will receive his blessing at around January to March. You can then in theory repeat the cycle towards the end of the year. *Note: Sometimes you can have consecutive blessings, sometimes you have to wait a year or two…it depends on the map.
How much will you receive? I normally look at a profit of roughly 10k+ per year. For this game, I had three warehouses full of oil, pottery and wine, earning me a wooping total of 44k over two years. This money will then be channeled to build the 1st palace block. Once the palace block is done, I am assured 100 prosperity and a life time of riches.
Extras:
A short note on palace blocks. Keep them detached from the worker’s block. You don’t want your workers getting drunk and idle around in their new villas.
And keep your road system for your city simple. Try to have only one road. Cut down on intersections.
That's all. Have fun with the gods. Enjoy caesar III