Old School Civ Player Getting his butt kicked in Civ III

[Nutrageous]

Hey all...

I'm getting my rear handed to me in Civ III.

I've been playing Civ since it first came out. I played Civ I on my old 286.

Sometimes, I would often play easy levels just to see how much faster I could advance than "real" history. For the first time, my old playstyle is just getting tromped on by the AI. Has the game changed that much in this version? It seems so bad that I almost wonder if my difficulty setting is whacked. Used to be, I could easily have railroads before the time of Christ! With TONS of future sciences at the end. Now I can't even get nuclear weapons before 2050.

The AI NEVER accepts anything but a one-sided trade in thier favor. Used to be the AI would sometimes GIVE me gold just cause the liked me.

The AI grows like a virus. If I don't go balls out expansion, I get painted into a corner.

The AI wins evenly matched battles 75% of the time.

Even when I go balls out science, I'm usually at MAX only ahead of the computer by a few advances.

The AI is forming alliances against me...all in CHIEFTAN mode...

Is the game that much harder now?

Am I just a moron?

Do you think my difficulty setting is whacked?

What am I doing wrong?

Nutrageous

[Spike59]

When I first started plying Civ III I was not doing so well. I started reading the posts and articles here and it helped quite a bit. Civ III is amlost a new game, rather than an updated Civ II. The old statagies just do not work so well.

In Civ III diplomacy is much more important. I used to be pretty much an isolationist in II. Those days are gone.

[lord42]

i went from civ one straight to civ 3.
My first game was iroquois on chieften huge map. Took my continent, one of two, and invaded the other one. Ran out of time and won a histo with 1300+ points closest competitor 300

Now I found my best civ (France oddly enough) so i will probably move into warlord for my nest game.

[EuropeanPotato]

Nutrageous

[Nutrageous]

Yes?

[alamo]

You definitely need to 'unlearn' some of the bad habits from Civ2. You should not start out of the gate with a war-monger attitude.

The biggest change are the culture, alternate victory conditions, and civ-specific abilities. Trade and diplomacy are much more complex, also.

The first challenge is to build a core of productive cities around the capital. Your second challenge is to get and keep a good reputation. The next challenge is to play to your civ's special abilities - traits and Unique Unit. The forth challenge is to learn to work the trade and diplomacy to your advantage.

About those unfair battles - the battles are fair in the statistical sense, there is just a large variation built into the system. You will prevail if you have the numbers to keep rolling the dice until everything even out the way it should. If you don't have the depth of ranks, then you takes your chances. Whatever you do, make sure you only build veteran units.

One more edit and I'm off to play - there is one thing that is glaringly unfair that you must be aware of up front. The AI sees the whole map AND units AND all the resources. When they are rushing settlers into your imminent domain for no apparent reason it is because they can see that single iron, saltpeter, rubber or aluminum that you can't! They also know exactly where your units are located - try blocking a path to an unclaimed territory and watch the settlers retreat even though they have no way of seeing it. Those darn ironclads also know exactly where the unoccupied improved squares are for bombarding.

They can get uppity when you turn the tables and deny them resources early on, too. I had the babs bum-rush me with their bowmen because I took the only horse on the continent - just 5 squares from my capital. I happen to found my second city in the right place. Only after several years of war did I get the wheel and see those horses and realized why they risk a warrior vs spearman first strike.

[Siegmund]

The gameplay is certainly different in some ways from Civ1 (which I also played and loved - and still have.) It is - erm - more like the real world! Guess what... it ISNT easy to conquer the entire world, and you ARENT going to enjoy more than a short period of dominance after you discover a new super-weapon.

But it is "still the same game", at least if you were a believer in spaceship victories in Civ1. Warmongering retarded your growth in Civ1 too - it just was easier to bowl over the whole world when catapults were 6.1.1s!

Notice that they have changed the turn lengths (which, frankly, I think was stupid): in Civ1, "before Christ" means "in the first 200 turns" - but with the clock starting at 50 years per turn in Civ3, those same 200 turns put you several hundred years into the ADs.

You are right about each individual trade tending to seem unfair to you. Solution: sell the same tech to all of the other civs the same turn - even if you only get 70% of what you deserve each time, you can still get 4 times as much in return as you gave them if you milk each one of em for what they are worth.

[Bismarck]

A few quick hints:

* Wars are fought on a greater scale than in Civ2. Build a huge army before you attack! Even when not at war, maintain a large defensive army as a deterrent.

* Choose your targets carefully. Aim for local numeric superiority. Strike quickly. Nothing is worse than getting bogged down in a poorly-planned war.

* Prepare for the "age of the offensive" well in advance. There are many variants on this: e.g., stockpiling horsemen and gold, then doing a mass upgrade to knights. Use your narrow window of "offensive superiority" to whittle away a few good cities from your nearest neighbor.

* In the ancient era: expand, expand, expand! Look for some hints on early expansion on this site.

[Shillen]

The AI sees the whole map AND units AND all the resources. When they are rushing settlers into your imminent domain for no apparent reason it is because they can see that single iron, saltpeter, rubber or aluminum that you can't!

I don't doubt the AI knows where these are but from what I've seen they do an awful job of settling near resources. Hell half the time when they have iron 6 squares from their capital they never settle anywhere near it and don't even hook it up for a long time. I usually can claim every single iron source if I want to waste settler moves travelling halfway across the map to do so. Maybe it's just me though.

[Strikefang]

I don't see a mixed option so I'll just say its hard enough to be enjoyable but easy enough so its not impossible. I haven't played the original Civ, so I don't know how hard/easy that was, but I have played CivII for 4 or so years (since it came on one of my dads computers).

Of course its gonna be harder, I mean, who would pay $30 $40 or $50 for something that doesn't challenge them any more than the previous version did? I find it easier in some areas. Without shield support like CivII, I can manage MUCH larger armys, combined with MFU's, wars can be much more exciting than in CivII (Not to say CivII wasn't great, though!) . I also feel challenged much more because the AI is bullying me alot more and not taking the BS they took from me in CivII.

So to conclude, I would say I do pretty well in CivIII, although I do lose alot, thats part of learning and adapting, but I rarely get so completely owned (I only did once, by the Russians who did a surprise invasion) that I say "wow the AI really kicked my butt bad."

[wilbill]

Play a few more games to get the feel of the mechanics of the game.
Read the FAQ here, then work through the War College - it's indispensable.
Forget about how you played Civ 1 & 2 - for the most part it won't work now.
Civ 3 is not only a different game, it's a better game. Just takes some getting used to. Have fun.
BTW, make sure you're patched up-to-date with 1.29 - earlier versions are pretty buggy.

[hbdragon88]

Trade is really imporant: it appears that you're falling behind because you're researching all your techs and not trading/buying them. If you've got a tech nobody else has, sell it for other techs and cash. This keeps you in the tech trace and strengths relations. And is really imporant in higher levels.

The combat system, there's a lot of room for luck. The game probably is harder from the (from what I've read) easier AI in civ2 and civ1. Read through the War Academy and this FAQ.

[wilbill]

Originally posted by hbdragon88
The combat system, there's a lot of room for luck. The game probably is harder from the (from what I've read) easier AI in civ2 and civ1. Read through the War Academy and this FAQ.

Definitely! The combat system is very different from earlier Civs. One big difference - there are no "even up" battles. The defending unit gets at least a 10% bonus even on grassland/plains. Familiarize yourself with the defensive bonuses or you can find yourself throwing away units very easily.

[Aggie]

The game is harder, because the AI is smarter. A lot of us don't recognize this anymore, because we play the game a lot and got used to it. But the AI IS smarter than in CIV2 or SMAC.

[Woody]

Civ III is not harder than Civ or Civ II it is just different. You just need to play and try different things. The reason you hear people complain the most about some things (corruption,culture flipping, and combat results) is that they are new and/or different from the other civ games. They do not make the game harder they just make you learn new strategies to account for them.

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

have a look at the FAQ, then proceed to strategy and tips froum and the war academy. You will see that it is a different ballgame.....

[Thunderfall]

Keep playing, Nutrageous.

Once you get used to the new stuff you will see it's a fine game and it would be hard go back to Civ2.

I usually play on emperor and deity levels in Civ2 but in Civ3 I am happy to just play on Monarch level, and win.

[Renata]

Well, you're certainly in the right place.

*stands up like at an infomercial taping*

Hello, my screen-name is Renata, and two months ago I was losing on chieftain.

*crowd: oooooh*

In fact, I had formerly played CIV I and II and never progressed above Warlord level.

*crowd: ooooooooh*

But now .... I'm trying CIV III on monarch in a succession game!

*crowd: OHHHH*

Regent is getting too easy!

*crowd: ahhhh*

Warlord is a cakewalk!

*crowd: Ahhhh*

Chieftain - don't make me laugh!

*crowd: chuckles*

And I owe it ALL .. to CIVFanatics.

*bows head, wipes away tear*

*crowd: wild applause*




Renata

[Phantom Lord]

Civ 3 is more balanced than Civ 1 and the AI is stronger. Civ 1 was much about getting the Pyramids first and go democracy asap, blowing up unit stacks or conquering a continent with a single chariot. All these things don't work in Civ 3. Government types are more balanced, units get damaged, can retreat and heal. All in all Civ 3 is much more mature than Civ 1 was - imho.

[Park Ranger]

Yeah, I voted civ3 IS harder because, as a vet civ2 player, you need to unlearn all the old exploits of civ2 and learn the new ones in civ3.

Civ3 diplomacy and trading are head and shoulders above what civ2 offered. The trade milking (see above posts) is key. Also what's new is the research needed for a particular tech decreases as more civs learn that tech. It's harder to get a several-tech lead ahead of the competition. And trying to research everything by yourself will only the game.

In some ways playing chieftain or warlord on civ3 when you've played deity on civ2 can be more difficult than playing say on regent. On the low levels of civ3 the AI's just fall behind in everything, and never really provide much in the way of trades.

But I find the top levels, emperor and deity, WAY harder than they were on civ2. Looking back I think I depended too heavily on exploits in civ2 (spies escorting troops through enemy lines, 3000 gold caravans evey turn, howitzer blitzes, bribing barbs for quick armies and bribing AI cities, etc.). Civ 3 still has its exploits, but it's harder to dominate so completely, I find.