but how do you manage to consistently stay with other civs in science. I have just the main Civ III...and in only my last game (which I haven't finished) have I been able to keep up with the other computer players. So how do I do that in every game? :confused:

Welcome to CFC, big_sis!

Generally speaking, more commerce and use of the science slider will result in more science. Build libraries and universities where the beaker return justifies the shield investment and upkeep. Use your totally corrupt cities as specialist farms by irrigating everything so as to support as many specialists as possible and switch between taxmen and scientists as needed. Also build lots of roads. Roads help generate commerce and the Republic government adds even more commerce to that. (However, since you're in Civ III vanilla, you won't get any unit support in Republic.) Also, making early contact and trading techs helps a lot.

What difficulty level are you playing? And what government are you using?

when they are available you should build universities

I usually play cheiftan, but I will play warlord sometimes if I'm feeling ambitous...lol. I usually play despotism til I discover monarchy, republic, or democracy and switch.

Build a strong infrastructure with marketplaces, libraries, cathedrals, temples, banks, and universities in your more productive cities in a government like monarchy or republic. When you get to democracy, if you have a solid infrastructure established, you will normally race well ahead of the other civilizations. You may be behind most of the game but youll catch up later because your core infrastructure is stronger. What you want is a 2.8 tax.science scheme with +gold per turn in the treasury..Thats ideal..Once your ahead, you can trade your technologies to all the other civs for a certain gold per turn.

okay. I'll keep that in mind. So the more small wonders in a city you have, the better you'll be?

Build some workers, build some more workers. Have them road, switch to Republic and stay there. Conquering another civ is good because you can raise the science slider and build specialist farms. Generally, improve your gameplay. You should have no issues out-teching the AI on regent or below.

The best advice that we can give you is to build a lot of cities, and have the citizens work on roaded tiles.

Citizens working roads provide base commerce, and base commerce is translated into science beakers.

Do not build city improvements you don't need. Don't build temples and cathedrals collosseums etc, unless their effect leads to gaining more commerce in returns than you lose. Also, keep in mind that the production shields they cost could have also been invested in militarty, that could have been used to conquer more land to build more cities.
A temple provides happiness, but so does a lux resource, so maybe its better to conquer a lux resource from an other civ and get far more happienss than a few temples could.

In the early tuns, focus on growth, build mainly settlers and workers and expand expand expand. and use the workers to improve the land as fast as possible. The more cities you have, the more citizens you'll have working the (roaded) land, the more base commerce you will get.

Don't waste your time building to many great wonders either, because a city building a GW isn't building settlers and workers. (and military)

Follow this advice and soon you'll overwhelm the AI to such a point it isn't even funny anymore, then you'll probably want to move up in difficulty.

Build lots of cities, and put a road in practically every tile of your empire.

Pointy Stick Research.

No AI can outresearch anyone when most of its cities have been captured or burned to the ground by a good old fashioned early rush of veteran archers (or even better, Swordsmen, if you've got iron nearby). Not only does burning their cities down slow them down, not only does capturing their cities for your own use speed you up, but such aggressive behavior will also convince any AI civ "ahead" of you in technology of the wisdom of making the following very fair trade:

Human player gets: to catch up and be brought up to pace with AIs research.
AI player gets: to not be utterly eliminated.

Seems fair to me! :)

Wait wait, Chieftain? You're falling behind in research on Chieftain? Then your problems are something really rudimentary.

As Empiremaker and MAS said, build more workers, and build more settlers. Try to average about 2 workers per city in the early going. In the meantime, your priority throughout the Ancient Era should be land-grabbing, NOT building construction. If you ever have to think about building a building or grabbing a plot of land, build a settler and GRAB THAT LAND (remembering to follow up with 2 workers supporting that new city).

Other posters have said it, but it warrants repeating, and it's impossible to overemphasize. EXPAND, EXPAND, EXPAND!!!

*salutes* Yes Sir! :p

;)

I usually play despotism til I discover monarchy, republic,
Wow, I feel a connection... I play as despotism until republic or monarchy is discovered too! :p

Another thing you can do is research horizontally, not vertically, and trade for the rest.

What does that mean? well, the AI will often pick the cheapest techs to research, which are usually the ones at the same level. Ie, Alphabet is cheaper than writing.

So, if you go alphabet/writing/philosophy, you can use those to trade for BW, The Wheel, CB, WC and Masonry... and probably mysticism, horseback riding and iron working, too!! maybe even math!!!

Okie dokie. :)

I usually go that way so I can get Feudalism first and get into the Middle Ages first anyway, so it isn't any out of my way.

I usually play cheiftan, but I will play warlord sometimes if I'm feeling ambitous...lol. I usually play despotism til I discover monarchy, republic, or democracy and switch.

NEVER stay in despotism until democracy. Get monarchy as soon as possible; republic is bad that early in the game because you'll want to be going to war and building your military. Not until you're secure and have a large empire should you switch to republic. Serious builders will find democracy useful, but I find republic to be better than democracy in almost every respect. It actually gives you worthwile unit support.

republic is bad that early in the game because you'll want to be going to war and building your military. Not until you're secure and have a large empire should you switch to republic.

Outside of specific and uncommon circumstances, I'd advice to switch from despotism to republic as soon as possible.
Outside of the "Always War" variant game, republic is a better war government than monarchy, it adds +1 commerce to every tile that is already producing one. This more than offsets the lowered unit support and higher cost for units over the support limit.

To switch from despotism to monarchy and then to republic also means you switch more than once.

Outside of specific and uncommon circumstances, I'd advice to switch from despotism to republic as soon as possible.
Outside of the "Always War" variant game, republic is a better war government than monarchy, it adds +1 commerce to every tile that is already producing one. This more than offsets the lowered unit support and higher cost for units over the support limit.

To switch from despotism to monarchy and then to republic also means you switch more than once.

What abourt war weariness?

War weariness is perfectly manageable in Republic.

War weariness is perfectly manageable in Republic.

I just don't think it should have to be dealt with. I've always done fine in Monarchy.

I just don't think it should have to be dealt with. I've always done fine in Monarchy.

That's fine. Obviously, you don't have to deal with WW if you don't want to. But WW and unit support are the only advantages that Monarchy has over Republic that I can think of. The Republic commerce bonus outweighs both of those, IMO. As MAS said, the All-War variant almost requires Monarchy and Monarchy is the best government for it. For culture wins, Feudalism is an option. But for most standard games, Republic is a very strong government.

Monarchy can also be strong in Deity or Sid games when it's usually necessary to fight long-term slugfests and having WW would be killer. Oscillating wars don't always work that well if you want to make any kind of progress. Also, such as in my recent solo Deity game, trading for Monarchy can often be accomplished long before Republic becomes available, giving more incentive to switch to the kingdom... :king:

Republic, of course, is usually the superior government. ;)

WHich one of the two has worse corruption? I personally swap back and forth between the two alot. I like Monarchy early on to expand my borders even further than settler rushing once I get some aquaducts. It lowers my corruption too from Despot and helps speed up the war and progress. But when I try to compare corruption of republic vs. Monarchy, it isn't real clear. I believe Monarchy is "Problematic" and Republic "Nuisance". Now to me, something that is problematic is a nuisance... but obiviously that isn't situation here. So which is worse, a nuisance or something that is problematic?

It's not all that clear to me, either, but I think that Monarchy's corruption is worse than Republic. I could be wrong here, so someone correct me if I am.

yeah monarchy's corruption rate is problematic, and republic's is nuisance. nuisance is the second best, problematic is the third.

although you get pretty nice unit support in monarchy the boosting of republic by the conques expansion makes it less worthy i think. well, war weariness makes the long-time wars risky, but that trade bonus combined with lower corruption and that even little unit support...

hmm i would choose republic over monarchy unless i am an all-time warmonging bastard :)