Best civ for a conquer victory?

[Greyhawk1]

I've never managed a conquer victory in Civ 3. I thought I'd try it this time. I thought of the most warlike nation and went for Zulus.

It seemed logical at the time

Initially everything went well, I popped about 10 techs from goodie huts in the early stages...Babylon was my nearest civ and had the best land on the continent (green plains with wheat and cattle mostly). I had tundra, desert and brown plains with a few rivers. Well I wasnt sure at what stage I needed to be to be able to attack him so I concentrated on building my armies and cities up as much as I thought I could - thinking I had a large tech lead.

Anyway I stole some of Babylon's land with some cheeky colonies placed in small gaps.

I wanted to get Knights before I started in earnest taking on Babylon as my units arent brilliant and the Impi is pretty useless in an offensive role. Up to this point I was convinced I had a large tech lead with the goodie hut advantage. I'd only seen Spearmen defending Babylonian cities.

As soon as my first batch of Knights was built I started my campaign. Almost immediately I ran into a snag. The Babylonians had somehow managed to get Feudalism...so I had Knights against Pikemen - lots of Pikemen. My attack stalled after just a few cities after losing almost all my attacking force trying to dislodge Pikemen. Thats when the Medieval Infantry started to appear. I made peace...

Well my next chance would be Cavalry so I bided my time and made a beeline for Cavalry since the AI almost always goes for Education and Astronomy. I got to Cavalry pretty fast and upgraded all my Knights in one go. I was ready to have another go.

Again all I had seen were a few Pikemen up to this point. I assembled my forces and tried again. Once again, to my horror the AI had managed to get Gunpowder and Military Tradition as well as all the seafaring techs - with less than a third of the number of cities I had. So I had Musketmen to take out and was faced by Cavalry I had no idea they had. Last time I looked they had no Saltpeter.

I took three cities before my attack got annihilated by the phantom Cavalry force.

So my Conquest attempt lasted a grand total of six cities before all the other civs had caught up and passed me in tech despite all the early lead. I'm now struggling to catch up to their out of control research. I have the largest civ by a factor of three but I cant touch anybody else in research.

Now I'm seeing Riflemen and I've only just started to research it. They've already got Medicine and are on their way to replacement parts - at which point I have no chance.

I guess Zulus arent the best choice for conquest - they just cant research fast enough.

 

[downwithgravity]

um...hate to break it to you, bro...how fast you research depends on YOU.

hah, just kidding...what diff are you on? what gov't are you in? and do you have libraries/universities? maybe you should be trading more with them too...but it also sounds like you were fairly unlucky. bummer.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Above warlord, you need to check the trading tables at least every other turn. I go for every turn if I'm not the clear (i.e, half an era ahead) tech leader.

 

[Goober]

If you want to research faster, choose a Scientific/Militarisitic trait combo (Germans?)

 

[Ville]

I agree with RealGoober. (It's Germans)

 

[Turner]

Germans might be the way to go for a conquest victory.

Now that Facism is a dead end tech, and rather expensive, the AI tends to go Nationalism > Facism. So go for Steam Power, get Industrialization, and make the US if you can. Make sure you've got factories, and beline for ToE. Get Hoovers dam, and beline for MT. Then you'll have the Panzers, have a good industrial base, and hopefully enough of a tech lead so that your panzers are fighting Riflemen instead of Infantry. Do it right, and the AI will all but stop science to fight you.

 

[superslug]

It of course can vary a lot depending on geography settings, but my choices of conquest civ depend a lot on when I think I'll be attacking.

In chronological order:
Aztecs
Persians
Chinese
Ottomans
Germans

 

[leopalas]

I love the conquest victory type and have had lots of success with scientific Civs, forget the militaristic its of no importance in the long term, what matters is to get best weapons before the others and that is achieved by stressing allways on research. The rest is simple... if u have modern tanks against cavalry

 

[The Last Conformist]

China is a very good warmonger's civ. Industrial -> quick roads and mines, which is the secret behind getting there the fastest with the mostest. Militaristic -> Well, we're talking about warmongering, aren't we? Rider -> one of the best UUs.

 

[Greyhawk1]

I've been playing this for ages and I'm still crap ...I'm only playing on Warlord. This is PTW not conquests by the way. I'm in a Republic at the moment but the Anarchy is crippling due to my territory being naff - I lose a lot of citizens to starvation before I get back into order.

If I can just get those dang Babylonians I can sweep up the Aztecs who are north of them and way behind in tech as is the Chinese with a fairly small island to the North East of the Aztecs.

Looks like I chose the crummiest civ for conquest . Oh well I'm ahead in points if not in tech by a large margin mainly due to chipping away at the Babs and ending up with a large territory. I also got pretty lucky with luxuries, getting three types from the off.

On the plus side I've got an Army and have built the Heroic Epic and almost finished the Military Academy. I dont normally do war - I'm a trade/diplomacy type so its rare I get a chance to build those two wonders.

At any rate the game is enjoyable which, of course, is what its all about in the end

 

[Greyhawk1]

Bloody hell. Babylon is one tough nut to crack...the war is now worldwide and I have to see this one through to the bitter end...no peace.

Babylon's Riflemen are taking down three Cavalry for every one of theirs - its taking a large stack of doom to just be able to take a single city! I've managed to take over their supply of coal for myself as, as usual, I didnt have any coal. This is the sixth game in a row without coal in my territory.

In the end this is a war of manufacturing. I can churn out more Cavalry than he can produce Riflemen its just taking so darn long! And he seems to have an infinite supply of Riflemen!

I've been trying to deprive them of Horses to starve them of Cavalry but there are so many Horse resources its just impossible. I have 6 Horses in my own territory alone!

I'm having to reload because of culture flips as well. I'm not losing a city to culture flips - I'm sorry but this is the lamest thing ever. I normally switch it off but I forgot this time.

Its 1782 and I'm a Communist country now - war weariness was so bad I could no longer survive under Republic. The anarchy starved about half my cities of a good proportion of their population. I'm never going to change my government now.

 

[TheEndIsNear]

Perhaps you should learn how to build a good SSC. Those are always great things to have up your sleeve.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Greyhawk, maybe you should try artillery. He's probably drafting the mess out of his cities.

 

[kb2tvl]

If you played zulus, I would have built some impis and had horsemen to attack his archers. You would need quite a few and you would need to hit him fairly early. Still, babs are not the easiest civ to take. The have a ton of culture and you are always in danger of flips.

On the cav, watch the direction your attacking. Rivers add a bonsus. Also, if the city is on a hill, this will chew up quite a few cav as well.

Last, if you plan on war mongering I would suggest monarchy instead.

 

[Greyhawk1]

Well, bizarrely I managed to wipe out all his cities but Babylon is still alive! I dont know how or why but he has no cities on the map at all but he still manages to culture flip me...what gives?

Anyway - I'm in a Democracy now, its too late to try conquest. Zulus are a really crap civ. Their workers take forever to do improvements!

I have by far the biggest portion of the map with absolutely loads of cities but it doesnt matter. Somehow the AI still keeps up with me and passes me in tech - even after I got the Theory of Evolution with a Leader. Despite the fact that the next largest civ to mine is about a quarter of the size. The Greeks have only 9 cities to my 40 plus (estimate) but are still out-researching me.

I'm undecided whether to go try to keep up in tech which is nigh on impossible or go the 100% money route and buy everything...

The corruption in my cities might have something to do with the lack of progress on the research front. almost all the Babylonian cities I captured are 100% corrupted. Should I return to Communism to make all my cities productive?

 

[StabbingNirvana]

no way. after nationalism (when you get mutual protection), theres no way you could be at war with just 1 country. so the germans would be outwith. the best would be either the ottomans (8 attack. 3 movement. not even riflemen would take them) i havent played them, but just by their traits and unit, it seems like it

 

[Eastern Knight]

Chinese and Ottoman.

 

[Mano3]

Believe it or not, I'm kicking butt on Monarch with the Iroquois! Got the UU very early and killed all my neighbors. It's the 1700's, I have Infantry and Cavalry, and 3000+ points. Soon the world will be mine!