Is impossible impossible?

To even get a fair start on impossible i found that you have to find a nomads or city ruins within the first few turns, and you cannot deploy your settler without exploring at least a little and finding one ruins. If i never got that 2nd city i couldn't last, possibly because the AI's start out with two settlers while i start out with one (can anyone verify this??
then, instead of building settlers and expanding, i just build a small to medium army of units and whatever mercinaries i come across and capture a small city, and comtinue to capture that civilization. This is more productive than doing it the settler way. TO win in impossible you must use your military wisely. always have one ranged unit to back up a attacker, and as soon as you get flanking units they are a must,too. As soon as the catapult is available the enemy will slaughter your units with fortified catapults unless you take 2 or 3 and bombard the city for a couple turns. Any tips on how to make impossible easier? Please respond.

[OmniGod]

For me on impossible, there is nothing different. I play exactly the same way I would for easy. I build my first city. 2 units then settler, granary, shrine and settler. I slowly expand my area, and I generally play on maps without goodie huts cuz I'm not a big fan of free this or free that. I find the closest civ and make a peace. Ram out the settlers and some miltary while building roads and farms. Once the island or continent is full on my side I have to start taking out the neighbour. I do this systematically with a demand, embargo demand and then I position my 6-8 units near a city declare war and take the city. Call a cease fire and wait 10 turns and start it all over again. Even with the diplomod this works but only for the first 5 cities then the AI seems to wise up. So I set out find another civ and crush them in the same methodical way. It works very well. While I'm off crushing a new civ, I make massive peace with the first civ give them money and such and a science treaty. They love me then, so I ask for some of their science and they love to give it to me. Sometimes a little money will loosen their tongues. Once I've advanced past them, I take them out. Continent or island is mine and I fortify it nicely. Then on to the others... it's not impossible it's just tactics. With the advent of Frenzy and Diplomod it's more intense since they return fire more often and refuse my advances a little more but the strategy works in the end around 1500 to 1700 and the world is mine. This is why I don't play too many games any more, I'd rather mod and mapmake... just call it a change of profession... but I still love this game.

Rich

[TacticalGrace]

I make heavy use of archers and slavers. get an army of as many archers as you can containing one slaver. I seek out barbarians at the beginning and only attack if confident of victory. Every time I win a skirmish I will get slaves sent back to my cities. This way I build up strength and eventually turn to conquoring my meighbours. I reach my city limit quickly and so make monarchy my research goal after ballistics and slave labor.

When you are attacking enemies with catapults in their cities be very careful. Don't let then bombard you without being able to bombard back with interest. If you bombard half-heartedly you will be ineffective. Later in the game I use stacks of 10 or 11 artillery to pummel a city.

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Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed
[This message has been edited by TacticalGrace (edited February 02, 2001).]

Omnigod, thats pretty cool! I never thought of using diplomacy to my advantage like that. I guess thats one of the better features of CTP2 as opposed to civ2. Usually i just let my military do the talking. Right now i/m 8-9 hours into a impossible game, with Romans, Japanese, and Cubans which all hate me! I killed 2 civs and i'm halfway done killing the cubans. And the best part, i'm at about 1400AD so it looks like i'll get to use the cooler futuristic units and things in the game, which was a problem in CTP1 because no matter what, i always won by the time i had tanks and artillery. Thats another reason i like CTP2--its more difficult. The cuban cities i attack will always have 10 or 11 fortified units inside, always with ranged units. in CTP1 the AI was so stupid and now i'm saying "Dammit, now they're thinking like me!" But oh well it's still fun as hell. But sometimes i can't resist loading the game when i screw up bad. How many of you out there do that? I hope i'm not the only cheater (i somewhat consider that cheating) but to me it's funner in the end. Looking forward to responses!