I probably won't be much help without a screenshot, but I'll give it a shot anyway.
Playing Vanilla Civ III patch 1.29f.
Greeks huge map 9 civs ~ 100 AD
This is my first serious try at Regent level. I am having numerous difficulties keeping up with the AI.
Science - I built the Great Library when I saw that I would have contact with numerous civs. I am still lagging behind them but GL is keeping me in the game.
You shouldn't bother with the GLib. There are better ways to keep up with the AI. Unless you're shooting for a monopoly tech, set your science to 0%, and buy techs off the other civs. The GLib is a major problem, as it teaches you bad habits. You should read Ision's
Four Rules of Wonder Addiction and Bamspeedy's
Trading Tips for Beginners for more info on both of these subjects. That's not to say you shouldn't build the GLib if you have to, but you really should learn how to get by without it. If you lag in Regent with it, then you'll get killed at higher levels, where you're lucky to get any early wonders.
Happiness / Growth - I have 2 different luxuries and the hanging gardens and I keep having cities over size 6 go into disorder and require an entertainer. All of these cities have 2 defensive units garrisoned. Can someone explain the content citizens # at this link
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/infocenter/#levels
Okay, the luxes are good, but the HG doesn't do much. What is it, one content citizen happy in all continental cities? That's nothing. With the exception of your capital, which gets three, it won't do you much good. And you shouldn't be using entertainers in the early stages. Use the lux slider, especially since you already have a few luxes hooked up. If you have two luxes, that's two happy faces, which isn't much, but it should be all you need in the early stages. Build lots of settlers and workers, to keep your cities' pops low. Your main goal in the early days is expansion. Worry about growth of your cities later, expansion is key. One large city may be able to produce units quicker than others, but several smaller cities can specialise in specific units.
Expansion - I have 2 cities that I use as settler factories. Each has 2 wheats on a desert / river. Lots of food + no shields = slow settler production! I am in the middle of three neighbors (Egypt, Rome, Germany) With Rome and Germany being Militaristic I have a feeling that they will come after me soon. I feel like Chicken little!! I need to find a balance between expansion and military build up for a detterrent. Are the militaristic civs always more aggressive?
Two floodplain wheat is good for growth, but without shields, they may not actually be the best sites for settler factories. I'm assuming you don't have any better options at the moment however, so I'd advise you to simply mine everything you can in those two cities, and if they're actually growing quicker than your settler production can keep up, no granaries. It's not often you have a situation when it's best not to build granaries in a settler factory, but this sounds like one of those situations. You should also set the city governor to 'Emphasise Production'. Not just in those two cities, but in all of them. This will give you extra shields during the inter-turn. Check out Bamspeedy's
Deity Settlers and RFHolloway's
Spotting Settler Factories articles in the
War Academy for advice on settler factories. All in all though, it's better to have a less than entirely efficient settler factory, than none at all. Although you could just build settlers in all of your cities, but this is a difficult strategy to master.
If you're caught between three neighbours, limiting your expansion, attack one of them! Either pick the weakest for easy pickings, or the strongest to take out the biggest threat if you can (attacking stronger civs is always preferable, as it makes your job easier in the future, but if you're not up to it, kill the weaklings). Rush them with whatever you have at your disposal. I'll go into details after your "War" section. Being militaristic has no bearing on aggressiveness. I think Germany is one of the civs with its aggression level set to max though. Being militaristic merely enables them to build military improvements faster, and their units are more likely to be promoted after a victorious battle. The way around this is to avoid losing battles.
War - I had to go to war to get Iron and I got it. I declared war (very short war 4-5 turns) so how long will it effect the happiness? My Iron source is very close to the Germans and I assume that they will come after it again sometime soon.
Any suggestions / comments on my plight will be appreciated. This is a rambling post and not very many specific questions
Good, you'll need Iron for your expansion. I'm assuming if you have Iron Working, Monarchy and Literature that you're at least late AA, maybe early MA. War Weariness shouldn't affect you at all if you were the successful aggressor. I'm assuming you didn't lose many units in a short resource war, so even in Republic you'll be fine. If WW is a problem, just use the lux slider. As for your Iron resource, guard it well. Upgrade all of your units so they're up to your tech level, guard that Iron with both offensive and defensive units (defensive units for obvious reasons, to defend, and offensive units to pick off any enemies that try to attack you). You may want to leave your nearby city and the Iron tile free of units, to create a corridor for the enemy to enter, then fall on them from your chosen positions.
Okay, now for your overall strategy in the coming turns. Build granaries in cities you want to use as worker/settler factories, barrackses in cites you want to produce military units (aside from the very early days, you don't want to EVER produce regulars), and build as many settlers, workers and military units as you can. You want more offensive units than defensive, but defensive units are still important for defending newly conquered cities, if only to act as MP while your offensive units continue. They're also useful for guarding artillery, which is something else you should build if you have mathematics. Around ten cats would be nice for an invasion. If Germany's your most immediate threat, target her. Build as many cities as you can in that direction, concentrate on building roads in that area quicker than your others, and maybe even add some fortifications if necessary, although I personally think they're usually a waste of time, except at bottlenecks and on islands.
Now for the war. Move the majority of your military units (not all, that would obviously leave you open for an attack by the other civs) to the German frontier. Ensure you have no deals with them that will ruin your rep if you declare on them, and also that you have no units, not even workers or galleys in their territory, and declare war on them. If you're afraid of Rome and Egypt entering the fray, immediately ally yourself with them against Germany. Pay them in gpt, the AI has a tendency to break MAs, so you'll lose less paying them gpt for 10 turns than handing over a lump sum or giving them a tech.
Speed is the most important thing in warfare. Ensure you have many fast attackers (chariots, horsemen or better yet, knights) to capture workers and pick off reinforcements before they can arrive. They can also take cities with few defenders, although try not to let them get too far ahead of the slower moving stacks. They can also be used to pillage improvements, destroying roads to slow Germany down, cutting off luxes to make the effects of WW more pronounced, and in short making them a total nuisance.
Also important is firepower. Here is where your slower moving stacks come in. They should consist of your best artillery units (probably just cats at this point), best defensive units (you're Greece, Hoplites are
nice) and obviously, your best offensive units (swordsmen or higher). Plan your invasion route so that you're not attacking accross rivers, and if there are cities on hills with multiple defenders, don't worry about them. "Hit 'em where they aint." Attack their weakest cities and positions, isolating their stronger ones for later, although you shouldn't really worry about destroying them yet, just increase your territory at their expense. You can always finish them off later.
Also travelling with these stacks should be groups of workers. Use them to build roads to link these newly conquered cities to your own, and also to enable reinforcements to arrive from your core quicker. If you raze or abandon any cities, use settlers to found new ones in the unclaimed territory before Egypt and Rome can.
As for peace, don't sign a treaty until either your twenty turn MAs with Rome and Egypt are up, being sure to cancel them first, or after they break the deals themselves (more likely). If you achieve your goals before the twenty turn period is up, just worry about defending and consolidating what you have.
This should give you a solid foundation for the rest of the game. Feel free to rush the other two nearby civs as well if you need the
lebensraum. Good luck!
