[C3C] General civ3 strategies - improving my game

[pn_UK]

I'm stuck playing civ at a fairly low difficulty setting cause it seems like I kinda suck, lol. I think it's also possible there's a few concepts I'm missing out on by not exploiting them well enough, or at all. So, any general advice on levelling up your civ-skills?

Early game - my usual strategy is to build warriors to start exploring the map quickly, locate important resources, see where nearby civs are and what I'm going to be competing with them for, hoovering up as many bonus huts as I can while being on the lookout for the inevitable hordes of barbarians. I normally make sure I'm the first one to discover philosophy and gain the precious bonus advancement which I'll immediately use on iron working and start building swordsman. I'll normally build a temple in each city before using it to pump out another settler but wondering if that's been slowing down my initial expansion. My current game is as Germany so I've been building libraries rather than temples to start expanding my cultural borders and I think that's helped a bit. So tailoring my game based on my civ's advantages is probably something that I could improve in. Tech-wise, I'll then advance as quickly as possible towards monarchy so I can switch my government type to that. Usually I'll ignore great wonders at this point unless I think there's one that would genuinly help and I have the possibility of getting. Otherwise it's so frustrating to waste dozens of turns on something that another civ snaps up, doesn't seem worth it. I'll trade tech advances with other civs as much as I can (as long as it benefits) but obviously won't help rivals gain stuff they might threaten me with.

I almost never build granaries as it usually seems like something else is more important, and by the time a city has some free production, its population is at maximum anyway. But maybe I'm missing something useful there. I never build city walls either, again seems like a waste, I try to fight wars in my opponent's territory rather than my own. Also I've never really utilised armies but browsing the minor wonders available in the game, a lot of them seem to rely on use of armies so that's probably another trick I'm missing out on - from what I can tell they're primarily used in attacking rather than defending? I'd never really worked them out and I'm a lazy man so I just ignored them! Also I rarely get to the late game stage where they become more important, I think.

A couple of other things I've only just noticed/remembered I can do is keeping my civ happy by increasing funding to luxuries (genuinely I only used the taxation slider to put scientific funding up and down - it completely passed me by there was another slider underneath for increasing population happiness! I feel dumb, lol) and the fact you can use workers and settlers to resettle cities and immediately increase their pop. I mean I was aware it was a feature but I never actually considered how using it would help.

In wars I tend to rely on outclassing enemies rather than outnumbering them as I rarely seem to be able to match AI civ's production levels somehow, but I'm usually advancing the tech tree faster than they are. I'll move heaven and earth to find their strategic resources and preventing them exploiting them by occupying the territory or straight-up destroying the improvements. Then it's just a slow city-by-city grind.

So if anyone has general advice/tactics/strategies, or comments on what I'm doing, it's all appreciated! Cheers!

Chris

 

[tjs282]

Generally, up to Regent difficulty (where the playing-field is 'level' with respect to growth, production and research-rates), a competent human player should almost always be able to outperform the AI-Civs, regardless of Civ selected or spawn-point assigned, simply because we have the ability to plan ahead (and get the first move in every turn). Above Regent, the AI gets progressively increasing starting-units and cost-advantages (but the human still gets to build/move first).

Specific to your playstyle, my first piece of advice would be, don't build Temples so early (or even at all!), unless you absolutely need to, e.g. to get a Whale-resource inside your border. That is definitely slowing down your expansion, because while there is still land to grab -- and even if playing as a Religious Civ -- another Settler or two would usually be a far better use of those 30-60 (Temple) shields.

Conversely, an early Granary in a suitably food-rich town(s), would let you build Settlers (and/or Workers) more often, allowing you to expand more quickly...

Beyond that, I would recommend getting on YouTube and checking out the Civ3 vids by @SuedecivIII, specifically those aimed at beginners.

 

[pn_UK]

Generally, up to Regent difficulty (where the playing-field is 'level' with respect to growth, production and research-rates), a competent human player should almost always be able to outperform the AI-Civs, regardless of Civ selected or spawn-point assigned, simply because we have the ability to plan ahead (and get the first move in every turn). Above Regent, the AI gets progressively increasing starting-units and cost-advantages (but the human still gets to build/move first).

Specific to your playstyle, my first piece of advice would be, don't build Temples so early (or even at all!), unless you absolutely need to, e.g. to get a Whale-resource inside your border. That is definitely slowing down your expansion, because while there is still land to grab -- and even if playing as a Religious Civ -- another Settler or two would usually be a far better use of those 30-60 (Temple) shields.

Conversely, an early Granary in a suitably food-rich town(s), would let you build Settlers (and/or Workers) more often, allowing you to expand more quickly...

Beyond that, I would recommend getting on YouTube and checking out the Civ3 vids by @SuedecivIII, specifically those aimed at beginners.

Thanks, watching @SuedecivIII's videos I can see I'm not making all of the "beginner" mistakes he mentions but I am doing some of them which is probably impeding me. It's also interesting to see how well liked Republic is as a government choice, I'd always been put off by the war weariness and unit cost but maybe I'll give it a go. Eager to fire up a new game now.

 

[tjs282]

It's also interesting to see how well liked Republic is as a government choice, I'd always been put off by the war weariness and unit cost but maybe I'll give it a go

Ooh gods yes, meant to mention that as well! A well-managed Republic almost always produces better results than a Monarchy -- provided the player has mastered use of the Lux-slider...

 

[CKS]

I'd recommend reading articles in the War Academy ( https://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/ ).

Don't waste your free tech on iron working, which you can easily trade for. Learn code of laws before philosophy so you can take republic for free and get out of despotism ASAP.

As tjs282 wrote, don't build temples (unless you want a cultural win).

 

[vorlon_mi]

Disclaimer: I play at Regent, because that's where I find it most fun. I probably could go up a level, but I like playing CivBE as well.

Another aspect that CKS hinted at is tech trading. Especially in the ancient age, trade techs as soon as you can with every AI you meet. Your exploring warriors -- and curraghs, hugging the coast, from your coastal cities -- will let you meet them and trade techs with them.

At first, I thought it might dilute my advantage. Then I learned (mostly here!) that keeping the AI relatively cash-poor by selling them your techs will let you run your science slider higher, for longer.

Pumping out settlers quickly, escorting them to good locations with your warriors, will let you grab the good land. Riverside sites that won't need an aqueduct; finding luxury resources; finding a source of iron and horses to build your early army. Try to settle on the coast, rather than off the coast, so that you can build ships and harbors to turn those coastal tiles into 2F, so they sustain a citizen.

 

[justanick]

Early on you need settlers, republic and workers, about in that order. Everything else can only be justified by helping you get those 3 things reasonbly soon. Therefore granary might be OK, but temples and barracks are not. Early on 3/3 units are fine. Once you are a republic this changes. In despotism you want 3/3 wrriors as explorers and as military police. As an early republic however you want your unit support bill to be as lows as reasonably possibly. Due to much needed workers this is quite a challenge. Try to master the first 140 turns till the year 250 AD of the game. Once you have mastered those the rest of the game tends to be reasonably easy.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Does tech trading, and thereby keeping the AI civs cash-poor, affect their ability to keep building - or at least, I assume, maintaining - units? And if they keep building at crazy levels, is that why some of them basically stay broke?

Besides ... I really don't quite want to sell techs for too cheap, either.

 

[justanick]

Does tech trading, and thereby keeping the AI civs cash-poor, affect their ability to keep building - or at least, I assume, maintaining - units?

It may have some effect, but it may be quite insignificant.

2 significant effects can be how much AI can spend on research and on upgrading its units. But mainly the purpose is to give you money. Also taking it away from AI is only nice sideeffect.

And if they keep building at crazy levels, is that why some of them basically stay broke?

The lack of useful things to build can mean that AI builds too much units, has therefore less money for research and does therefore continue to lack useful things to build.

Ironically a war making AI loose its abundance of units can help strenthen said AI in the long run as its research pace picks up.

@pn_UK: Most of what i wrote in those post has little to no relevance for your gameplay. The exception is gaining money from selling techs.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

2 significant effects can be how much AI can spend on research and on upgrading its units.

Upgrading! That's what I was trying to think of.

The lack of useful things to build can mean that AI builds too much units, has therefore less money for research and does therefore continue to lack useful things to build.

Ironically a war making AI loose its abundance of units can help strenthen said AI in the long run as its research pace picks up.

That's something I have to keep in mind as well ... just plain disbanding obsolete units and slimming down so I can keep up a decent research pace (which right now is a little rough, but at least I'm keeping up and/or slightly ahead).

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Beyond that, I would recommend getting on YouTube and checking out the Civ3 vids by @SuedecivIII, specifically those aimed at beginners.

With so little time to actually play, I've been running these videos (and I normally hate watching videos) and I really like them. Hopefully I'll remember some of it by the time I have a couple hours of playing time.

 

[alfa156]

Build order - war, war, settler,war. Build granary if it can be build faster than +2 population. If not continue - war,worker,war,settler till establishing 5-6 cities around capital and resources. Same for all cities. Just after this rapid expansion buildings - granary, Barracks, library. Research at 10% - writing/iron. Trade everything possible to everyone. After iron 50-60 turns upgrade all war to sword and attack with all units - at least 8-10. When all units have same damage - stop offense. Should capture at least 2-3 ai cities. Pease for all his technology+cities if possible. Attack next weaker enemy. After this 2 nearest enemy rush should have at least 20 cities. Start economy - learn republic, revolution.... Later can play peacefully - lots of workers needed=2x number of cities, all cities outside center worker, 1st ring produce buildings. zero new units, war just if enemy attacks. Pay other ai to fight each other.