I hate the British... (Need Island to Island strategies)

I hate the British....I was playing Civ3 (vanilla I believe is what you call the original version) and was having a smashing game...There were three major island continants, and I had conquered one of them for myself (killing the Greeks and Egyptians in route). I was building up my infrastructure as I had no contact with any other nationality. As soon as I coul, I sent out frigates and galleons to scour the world in search of other civilizations.

That's when I contacted the Babalonians...they were sharing the second continant with the Persians (whom they gave me contact to) and it was split roughly 50-50 between them. I then headed south and found the German cultural borders. The third continant was just a little south of the second, and was home to the Germans and the British (whom I really hate now). I managed to trade with all four of them, and got some cheap technologies out of them that I hadn't bothered to research (The Republic and the like).

Anyway, I realized I would need a base on that half of the world in order to conquer it, so I sent a settler and a musketeer to an empty spot on a tiny island halfway between the two continants (within culture range, though, only 3 squares away from towns on either side). Anyway, I researched and built up calvary and infantry for a few turns, and then decided to launch an attack against Britain....mainly because Babalon and Persia had a protectorate alliance and Germany was pretty far advanced (too much for a comfortable attack to be carried out against them).

So I dropped a half dozen calvary-men off outside of Lanchaster, a pop 4 town with spearmen defending...it wasn't even connected with roads to the rest of Britain, and took the city easily on the next turn. Long story short, the Germans declared war (they had signed a pact with Britain I didn't know about), I took one of their cities before Queen Elizabeth called me up and offered peace, which I took to prevent a two front war. I then set out taking over several German cities (four of their main cities in fact). They still had four cities left, but wouldn't give me anything good in return for peace. My resources were stretched thin, but I wanted to punish the Germans, so I called around, but nobody wanted to have an alliance against them except for the British...who three turns later controlled everything but Berlin.

I took Berlin a few turns later (when I had a delivery of three pieces of artillery and an infantryman) and took the city. The British then violated my cultural borders with several calvarymen, and I asked them kindly to remove them. They declared war, and Berlin was taken and retaken, and later destroyed. I tried taking several other cities, but didn't have enough man-power to do it and defend my cities. So I managed to hold on to seven cities in that hemisphere...mainly due to the lack of man-power and productivity over there.

I'm not sure how, but the British (who were kinda lagging behind in useful tech) managed to get infantry twenty turns later, and I had nothing to counter it. They gave the tech to the Babalonians and Persians as well, so there were no really viable war-paths open to me. By the time I got bombers and battleships, it was 1980, and all sides were firmly entrenched. I didn't have enough bombers or defensive units in that hemisphere to do any good until 2010, and by then there was no point in invading. I ended up winning with a Rank victory (with a score twice that of the British), but it seems like a hollow victory.

So, here's the question: How do you fight effectively over-seas? I had ships in continual convoy, but couldn't produce and ship enough units to make a real difference in the Trench Warfare age?

by the time you get to infantry or even riflemen, the attackers(calvary) are really ineffective. you need plenty of artillery/cannons to back your horses up! This is how you fight any war, no matter how powerful the enemy is, they still cannot stand up to the artillery barrage.

As for production, you have your own continent, improve it! micromanage alittle, get the most growth and production you can. build a stronghold on the other continent and just keep sending units there. Take your time by bombarding near by towns, take them when you are ready. if the enemy civ counter attack your advances, fall back to your original stronghold.

You really should have been sending suicide galleys out much earlier. It can be very profitable to play middleman.

You can use shipchaining to get units there immediately, but some consider it an exploit. EX: you launch a galleon of units from port to a spot on the way that a ship is already waiting at. Wake all transported, and load into the next galleon. Rinse and repeat. You can get units around the world in one turn doing this.

It sounds like you could have used a larger invasion force as well. 6 cavs isn't much if you get some bad luck with the rng.

Don't give a civ an ultimatum/refuse a demand if you can't handle them yet. Dogpiles are not fun.

You may like to read this articale on attacking AI continents -

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_conquering_abroad.shtml

[rant]As a brit, please stop refering to the civ as the British! They are the ENGLISH! Sorry but this is one of those little things that really bugs me! [/rant]

But I hate it when a civ behaves like that too!

I think your main failure was to attack only with 6 units. Thats defnetly not enough to grap a continent.
I use minimum 12 swordman (better knights or cavalry) to catch and hold the first city as bridge head. Take a city far away of your enemys capitol and than at the moment your next units arriving, you can begin to control him.
You have to attack 2 or 3 citys at the same time and when they fall, your enemy has no further chance to win. Your first goal should be to steel your enemys resources.

During the era of trench warfare, it is hard to ship units a long distance. A really tweaked-out homeland (factories, railroads, Hoover) is one of the key components, of course. That really gets your production up there.

If it's too far distant to fight during trench time, just wait for Flight and set up airports in lots of cities at home and one abroad and you can airlift units very rapidly. Still have a number of ships for artillery and settlers, but you can airlift across infantry and tanks and cavalry in sufficient number to make an impact.

Arathorn

Arathorn's right. It's all but unreasonable to try to make war on another continent with galleons and cavalry. I always wait until transports show up. At that point I can move a lot of units quickly, and flight shows up about the time I have a good beachhead city, allowing me to rush airports and resupply my troops by air. Always make sure you have enough defensive units and especially artillery. Your strategy is necessarily to take one or two towns, fortify them and make a "kill zone", and then let the AI immolate himself by attacking you. About the time you have finished inflicting horrific losses on the AI, and he is exhausted, then your reinforcements come in.