Post short tips here!

[Momerath]

Sort of on the "no man's land" managment:

In later battles, I'm finding it amazingly helpful to have a linked rail line between my 'way back cities and the front line. During the first blitz, I kept many of the workers building the rail infrastructure (oh, like 12 or so), and after the enemy cities have fallen and the front has moved back, they come zipping in from the outback to the front lines instantly on the rail network to build. Since I have a army of workers, they can build 3 railroads/roads per turn on flat land (3 per, I think). It connects the front lines amazingly quickly and helps bring forward the new troops!

- Momerath

 

[Blackguard]

Momerath,

I follow much the same strategy. It's one that I learned form the Wehrmacht. The German Army of 1941 had engineers and civilian workers from the Organization Todt, building new railroads and converting Soviet rail systems to West European standard gauges, in order to provide logistical support and ease of reinforcement. They followed quite close behind the front lines.

Workers seem to be an underrated asset to many people. During any conflict I try to deprive my opponents of as many as possible, through capture, tribute, etc., in order to hinder development, improvement, rebuilding and so on.

BlackGuard

"Death to Tyrants"

 

[JayKay]

Originally posted by Blackguard
Momerath,

I follow much the same strategy. It's one that I learned form the Wehrmacht. The German Army of 1941 had engineers and civilian workers from the Organization Todt, building new railroads and converting Soviet rail systems to West European standard gauges, in order to provide logistical support and ease of reinforcement. They followed quite close behind the front lines.

Workers seem to be an underrated asset to many people. During any conflict I try to deprive my opponents of as many as possible, through capture, tribute, etc., in order to hinder development, improvement, rebuilding and so on.

BlackGuard

"Death to Tyrants"

Aldo i agree with you in the crucial role of workers in a war, i don't think that your example illustrates it that well, because (if you know history) the Germans lost the battle for Russia exactly because they didn't had that logistic support you are talking about, aldo they've tried to convert the Soviet railroad system to West European Standards, they failed to do it in a reasonable time. You must remember that until they coverted the rail system, the Germans only had at their disposal a very few locomotives compatible to the Soviet rail system, leading to a poor support on the front lines (not only on men, but on equipment too, like winter clothes, ammunittion, armored vehicles, etc. - many germans fought the Russian battle with spring clothes) since even the German tanks were easily caught in the mud, because the roads in Russia weren't asphalted like in the West Europe (One thing that helped the Germans in the invasion of France was the good road system in that territory). In the other hand the Russian Tanks could pass easily over the mud because of their largest tracks.

So...as you can read, aldo the German intention was good, it wasn't well done!

But good tips, though! Keep it coming!
_________________________________________________



Portugal
Nation of: Magellan's (from Magellan's Expedition);
Vasco da Gama (Discoverer of the Maritime path to India);
and Pedro Álvares Cabral (Discoverer of Brazil in 1500)

 

[IClaudius]

Some simple strategy....

Raze cities ( except for wonders) more often than not they will flip on you and you will need troops to quell resistors. iF the city flips your units vanish!!!

watch your back... AI civs like to jump on you when you are engaged on another front...

use ancient units to pillage improvements around enemy cities.

use espionage to find out what resources the other civ has and scout around for those resources on the map.

during wars with other civs target strategic resources in particular iron. Luxuries too they tend to lead to unhappy cities if you can destroy roads to them.

use espionage to find out what resources the other civ has and scout around for those resources on the map.

bring strong defense units during battles... strong offense units can hide under a musketman rifleman or pike and attack next turn.. don't leave them out to dry.

always build barracks ... Art of War is an awesome wonder free barracks on the same continent!!!!!

 

[hoyatables]

I'll admit, I haven't gotten all the ways through this thread, but I haven't seen this yet, so...

When you sell tech, always start with the richest Civ first. The price of tech goes down as more Civs acquire it (supply and demand) so you want to get the most from the first person or two.

Make sure you constantly renegotiate your trades every 20 turns. You can often get at least a few extra gold/turn for the dyes and incense you've been selling. Furthermore, don't be afraid to shop around - you might be able to sell it to someone else for even more cash. I once forgot and realized I had been selling my wares for 8 g/turn when I could have been netting upwards of 40/turn in the 1000 year time period!

Also, trading an optional tech can be worth an awful lot - something like Music Theory or Free Artistry. If you're pretty confident you're going to build the Wonder, go ahead and sell it (starting with the highest bidder). You can often get that resource or luxury for 20 turns with a single tech that will be of no use to the opponents.

 

[holyman]

faraway cities usually will not flip if u have enuff troops. i guessed they flipped when u are fighting the war for too long(longer than 6 turns). i sent 42 calvary+rifleman units to the persian continent(yeah, they are alone on that one with ard 30 cities), took 4 cities in a single turn of the first attack, another 1 on the next turn, intercept all nearby persian units and make peace after defending for 2 turns. most captured cities got resistance quelled in 1 turn. rush temples and libraries, replendish units from mainland, attacked 3 turns later to capture 3 other cities, including capital, repeat the process for 4 times and i got 3/5 their land in 200 years. the last try i made peace in the same turn i attacked. they got only 2 units defending every city and i took 5 in a single turn. no flips till now. one thing to note is that after a city stop resisting it usually goes into anachy the next turn, and u cannot rush temples. thats bcos the quelled citizens all went to work without a temple wadever. so best thing is to keep track of happiness level. playing at diety.

 

[holyman]

ironclad sucks big time... i got 5 killed out of 8 confrontations with frigate and 1 killed by a galleon. imagine...

 

[Shaitan]

Originally posted by hoyatables
Make sure you constantly renegotiate your trades every 20 turns. You can often get at least a few extra gold/turn for the dyes and incense you've been selling

Be careful not to renegotiate if the civ is cash poor. In that case you'll likely get a less favorable sale.

 

[Ouchgeddon]

Edited point form UN victory manipulaton:

1) Get war declared on you, preferably by the biggest and baddest civ. Or go ahead and make some personally.

2) Bribe everyone to help you against the enemy. Don't take any further active part in the war. Pay for peace 20 turns after your alliancing (to avoid sour milk).

3) War should continue 4 ever, with peace deals being reshattered by mutual protection pact requirements. Be nice andgive people a slight upper hand in deals.

4) Build the UN (you should be way ahead due to not actually taking part in combat) and call a vote. By now everyone will hate that biggest civ, or at least hate you less than everyone else, giving you an easy win.

5)To tilt the odds even more, go all or nothing by bankrupting yourself. Give free gifts to everyone apart from your opposing candidate the turn before the UN finishes building.

 

[HarryS]

Once a game is well advanced there is the inevitable scramble for the last decent spaces. But once that's over your only apparent chances to expand are conquest with the inevitable possibility of flipping, especially when both civs are similar in culture, and slow cultural expansion. But in the mid game if you're prepared to set aside the necessary resouces there is another trick, the first strike settler.

Create one or two settlers with some extra defensive units and one fast unit and post them to your border near to the common border of two other civs and wait. The next time they go to war wait for a city to either be destroyed in action or razed. This may open, briefly, a space between the two civs, a DMZ if you will. Then swoop and plant your city. This works even better if you have a comprehensive rail network to rush the team around to the best border.

In my present game at Warlord with six civs remaining and the world a large pangaea that's roughly cresent shaped, I have watched the Egyptian and the Greeks on one side and the Chinese and the Greeks on the other side duke it out on half a dozen occassions and I'm up three new cities built with no politcal consequence. I have also gained a much prized access to the opposite coast of the pangaea.

The only down side is having to hold what could be a sizeable slice of your resources idle. On an archipeligo world the costs will be higher as you'll need ships too.

HarryS

 

[Night Hawk01]

I was wondering, is there a way to REALLY speed up science production? I've never even gotten half way through the Modern Ages. I usually get pretty far when I'm Japan, what nation does everyone else use? What government type also?

 

[Bogatir]

holyman, I've found naval combat one of the scarier enterprises in Civ3. After losing more than my share of ironclads in the same situation (and then losing destroyers to ironclads!), I finally figured out a bit of 'best practice' to try and keep my steam-powered navy from getting hammered by the AI's frigates.

My ironclads now always sail around stacked in pairs. Single AI frigates will seldom attack a stack of 2, so you can pretty much assure yourself the initiative by stacking. Then, when you run into a target frigate, use one of your ironclads to bombard it. If - and only if - your bombardment damages the frigate, then attack with your other ironclad. If your first bombardment doesn't do any damage, then bombard with the 2nd ironclad as well, because any damage won't 'heal' between turns. You'll either drive away the offending frigate, or be in an excellent position to sink it next turn.

Using this stacking/bombarding tactic gives me about a 90 percent success rate in all of my naval combats. It also works at about the same percentage when I send destroyers against ironclads.

Good luck!

 

[tek2b]

Originally posted by Shaitan

Be careful not to renegotiate if the civ is cash poor. In that case you'll likely get a less favorable sale.

Try to stagger your trades so they don't all run out at the same time. If you are trading for three luxuries and all three trades expire the same turn you may not be willing or able to renegotiate the three contracts. Losing the three luxury items could affect city happiness and cause you more trouble. I like to trade tech every 6 or 7 turns (as long as I am a step or three ahead) thus keeping a constant stream of income and luxury items.

 

[GTCiv]

>

Originally posted by pravda
>I think saving the game and retrying for the decent goodies >in the huts, is ok if you don't want to be proud of your final >score, i could never do that.

You means that the game counts every time you re - starts ???
I cant belive ...
Are you sure ??
How you discovered this ???

GersTree

 

[Mud]

Love most of these tips. To also learn a lot, check out the strategy articles and the succession games.

Tips:

1. For pre-flight naval battles, use bombard as mentioned in a recent post. After you've discovered flight, use planes to help out. In coastal defense, use fighters to scout the ocean. If an enemy fleet approaches, use bombers to weaken the enemy ships, than proceed to sink 'em using your destroyers.

For offensive task forces, bring carriers for spotting and bombing.

Use destroyers, not battleships. BBs take longer, cost more in production, and seem to sink just as easy. The only advantage I see in BBs is that they can bombard over two spaces, instead of one, like destroyers.

2. When negotiating with other Civs, you get better deals if you offer up something, using, "What would you give for this?" If you ask how much another Civ wants for something, they always get extravagent...

Example: Playing the Persians, I was in the modern age and trading with Egypt, who were 5 or 6 techs behind. Cleo had some incense that I wanted.

When I asked her what she would like in exchange for the luxury, she asked for two military-advancing techs (synthetic fibers and rocketry) and gold.

So then I cleared the trade table and offerred up Ecology tech, asking what she wanted in return. She offerred the incense, 200 gold, and 45 gold/turn!!!

 

[holyman]

thanx bogatir, i realised it a few days ago too. yeah, the ai will usually stay away from stacked ones...

 

[Momerath]

When you're in the mind-set of sharing your tech for the highest price available, be careful you don't use it in the middle of the AI turn cycle. This most frequently happens when the AI wants to end a trade - you may find yourself offering up that Tech for some wine, etc.

Tip: weather the discontent storm and go back for the luxury/resource on YOUR turn. This way you can shop the Tech to all the AI's. Otherwise, the AI will shop it around for you and you won't have as many buyers!

- Momerath

 

[willphase]

Originally posted by Witchfinder
2) If you have a high science rate, wait until the tech you are currently researching only has one turn left before discovery.

Am I right in saying that if, say, you have 1 turn to go until the next discovery, and you boost your science rate to 100% (i.e. it still says 1 turn, but you're going to overdo it a bit!) - that you start developing the next tech during the same turn?

[woops - sorry to add to this debate on the issue - I posted before reading the rest of the thread, and I can't delete my post]

-Will

 

[willphase]

Hi,

I've just sifted through this fantastic thread - some great hints here.

My few pearls from my limited game experience:

- On the turn that you develop a technology that allows you to upgrade units, and you happen to build an improvement in a city - then zoom on the city, and upgrade the units in all your cities by scrolling thru the cities (left or right arrow) and right clicking on the units. Then the units are ready to re-fortify at the start of the next turn

- I agree about workers and war from previous threads - they are great to make new railroads between cities you're attacking - if you have enough cavalry then you can wipe out a whole continent in one turn with the combination (maximum I did was take about 10 cities in one turn).

- 1.17f seems to have altered rules on units in naval transport. Moving a unit to a city, then loading into a ship in the city allows you to move the ship to another city, unload, and move the unit straight away. Useful for deploying units across continents.

- when you're exploring with boats on new islands, when you finish your turn, unload a unt into the island (if possible onto a mountain for an extra view). At the start of the next turn you can load the unit back in and, assuming you don't want to unload that unit in the same turn, you don't lose anything, but gain more exploration.

- It seems that parking units outside a civ's capital when you're at war scares them a lot and they'll give you loads more in exchange for peace - ergo head straight for the capital if you're just after exchange rather than obliteration.

- Head straight for chivalry, and then upgrade your knights to cavalry when you discover military tradition. Those units are brilliant for destroying civs.

- I like to not raze the cities of my enemies - because it allows me to fortify my units in there to recover their health. I build a temple/library (normally buying it) in the new cities to stop defection.

- The 'J' command in 1.17f is fantastic. You can use it to gather all your units together (if you have railroad) by 'j'ing your units around the map until they are in a big pile (like blu-tac). Also J your workers to next to a place you want to develop and then move them onto the location to develop. Only 'j' like this when you've got railroad!

- I never use 'shift-A' - tried it, didn't like it. I find that the AI just spreads my workers too thinly. I prefer to move my workers in big clumps and get instant improvements (e.g. clear jungle, road, mine in one turn).

Just my 0.2 euros.

-Will

 

[bigbag]

I don't know if these have been posted, I may have missed them in read 12 pages

1. Quick way to keep your treasury high later in the game: When the tech you're researching only has one turn to complete, drop your science budget down till you hit 2 turns till completion, then up one turn. This gives me like 400~600 gold on the next turn and still completes my tech on the next turn. After your tech is completed, return your science budget to where it was originally.

2. If your not fighting a war and you want to get rid of your obsolete Frigates and build Ironclads or Battleships, disband them inside a city that's building your replacement naval units. You get 15 sheilds per disbanded Frigate that count towards whatever you are building.