New to civ3? Or just looking for some strategy tips? Heres one stategy which works for me almost every time.
Please note:
If you are new to civ3, have skimmed the games civilopedia, and would like some strategy tips, this may be of help to you.
Civ3 is a very complex game that can be played in infinite ways. The following tactics may work for some of you, but this is merely one way to play the game.
This strategy takes you from 4000BC to about 300AD.
Choosing your game terrain
Initially, choose a small map. To get used to the game, chose pangaea. This avoids you being isolated on some island in the corner of the map. Also, wonders you build will often only affect cities on continent, so in a Pangaea all your cities receive full effects of all your wonders.
Barbarians are good because they give your units fighting experience, and disbanding their encampments gives you gold. Anything above roaming will create quite aggressive barbarians, so be prepared.
Choosing your Tribe
There are many tribes, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
To get a good start to the game, I suggest using an expansionist civilization. Expansionistic civilizations will produce a scout that can move 2 squares per turn, and they are ALWAYS well received by villages that they discover.
If you initially produce a handful of scouts and go search, you will end up with more civilization advances than any other tribe, but better yet, you almost always encounter a friendly settler who wants to join your despotism. This means you start the game with two cities instead of one, and if you find the friendly settler far away from your capital, this means that you can build your empire from two separate locations on the map. This second city is a brilliant location for the Forbidden Palace.
Another very good civilization trait is industrious. This means your workers work much faster than usually. This is especially helpful when you group 2 or more workers together. With just a handful of workers you can modify a citys entire radius in a very short time. This is especially useful when you capture a city or build a city near a jungle.
The tribe that is both industrious and expansionist are the Americans (note: I am not American). You can change your tribe settings to whatever you like (name, etc.), by clicking the field under the portrait of your leader.
STRATEGY AND TIPS
First moves and settings: establish your capital
Your capital should be in a near-perfect location, move the settler around if you like, just not for too many turns. In my experience, the best has been if the capital is on a river (or adjacent to it), and surrounded by mostly grassland and hills. A river allows your city to grow beyond population of 6 without needing an aqueduct, and the plains produce lots of food AND shields (which the plains dont). Hills (or mountains) are essential for speed when building wonders early in the game (unless your city is surrounded by game or other high shield producing terrain).
It is also very important to have some sort of luxury (spice etc.) somewhere near (though not necessarily inside your capital citys radius-it can be a little farther) to keep your population happy.
Rivers are also great because you can follow the river and build cities along it, without ever needing to build aqueducts for your cities.
- Build your capital city
- Start building a scout
- Go to your game preferences and SELECT always start building previously built unit and DESELECT capital governor default for new cities. For faster game play, turn off animations. Close preferences
- Contact the governor. Tell governor to manage the citizen mood, and emphasize food and commerce. SELECT default for new cities. (The governor is very complex, I will not go into more details, play around with it until it suits your needs and check more on this site.)
- Contact the city advisor (F1) and set your science funding to 100%
Expanding from your capital
- Build 3 or 4 scouts and send them out searching.
- Build a warrior
- Build a granary
- Build a Spearman
- Build one more spearman and send it to the place where you want your second city
- Build a settler and send it to that location. Build your second city.
In all, build 3 new cities (i.e. spearman & settler combinations) from your capital, then build a temple in your capital.
You may now want to build more military units, perhaps a worker or two, but you should now start work on The Pyramids. When the wonder has been built, build settlers or workers.
Once your capital hits a population of 3 or more, you have to contact the city advisor and set the luxuries somewhere between 10%-30% (Build a road to luxuries in your city radius to increase the happy population. Adjust the science funding accordingly. Try to always maintain economic growth unless you need to hurry a science advance.
Start work on your other cities
Initially, if your new city will grow in the same number of turns it takes to build a worker, build a worker straight away. Otherwise build a warrior and then a worker.
Try to build the cities surrounding your capital. Cities close to the capital have less waste and corruption than cities further away. Try to build one city that will produce many shields. If close to water, build one coastal city.
Try not to build cities in an area surrounded by plains and without a fresh water source, otherwise irrigation is very difficult.
Building cities close to the enemy will often provoke them.
If your city is in plains with forests and few mountains or hills, KEEP THE FORESTS as they are good sources for shields throughout the game. If your city is among grasslands, clear the forests quickly using the workers. When your city is small, clearing the forests add 10 shields to build your improvements, which is helpful.
While your capital is busy building a wonder, these cities now take over:
- New cities should be protected, have a worker and try to connect it to the capital as soon as the terrain has been modified
- Always build a temple in new cities straight away. Temples expand your city radius very quickly.
- Cities that produce many shields should now be used to build up your army. Build a barracks then lots of spearmen, then lots of Swordmen and some Horsemen, put defensive and offensive units in all cities.
- Cities that produce much food should be used to produce workers and settlers
- Always link your cities together with roads
- As soon as your game is going well and you have many cities, start building another wonder in a second city or again in the capital
Hurrying production under despotism
Under despotism, hurrying production will cost citizen lives. This may not seem like a politically correct thing to do to your citizens, but it is "worth it" in many cases:
- if your city has reached "6" and cannot grow
- has many unhappy inhabitants and is filled with entertainers
- corruption is eating over half of your shields/commerce
- it is wartime and you quickly need units
Diplomacy
When you first meet a tribe, check if the tribe you are talking to has a worker to offer. If they do, GET IT. An extra worker is always good.
General tip: Whatever it is another tribe wants from you, DELETE whatever THEY are offering you, then click on What would you offer me for (whatever they want) Usually they will offer you more now than they did in their initial bargain.
If a tribe threatens you initially and you have little troops, give them what they want. It will save you a lot of trouble trying to defend your cities with little troops.
Warfare
If a tribe declares war on you, this usually (though not always) means that they have a lot of troops, and will now concentrate its production on building military units. Do not go out to fight them. Let them enter your territory (here they move slower) and then attack them. Do not go out and attack until you have beaten back their initial attack and destroyed their units.
I dont advise you to go to war until you have swordsmen and a handful of horses. Keep swordsmen in all your peripheral cities. Keep horses in the central cities. In case of war move them to the periphery. Just to be safe, you may want to put up your luxuries budget by 10%.
If a tribe declares war on you, and you are unprepared, make another tribe declare war on the tribe that just attacked you (you must establish an embassy with that tribe first). You can wait until the tribes units are at your, gates, then make a nearby tribe declare war on them, and you will see half the units retreat to go fight on another front. If you make many tribes declare war on one tribe, you may soon see that tribe destroyed.
Fighting tips
- Try to always move the units in groups of attack AND defense. For example, move towards an enemy city with 2 pikemen and 3 swordsmen in the same square. Better yet is to move defensive units to the enemy city first and fortifying them in front of the city before moving the attackers onto the same square
- Always attack from rough terrain. Don't forget that attacking or defending from hills or jungle etc. is more effective than from a plain.
- Build barracks in cities on the battlefront so that your units heal faster
- If you are producing military units in virtually all your cities during a massive enemy attack, create faster moving units (horses etc.) FAR AWAY from the battle-front, as they can move faster TO the front, create defensive ones CLOSE to the battle front, as they take longer to move and are needed on the front straight away.
- If the enemy refuses to make peace, take a handful strong defensive units (pikemen or the like), enter their territory, and PILLAGE their roads and improvements. This works wonders.
Captured cities need many troops and a temple (maybe you can hurrying the temple production (especially under despotism) is usually a good idea. Do not try to capture too many foreign cities at once as captured cities take a long time to become friendly to the new tribe, and a lot of new cities can be a pain to control.
Government
You may want to become a monarchy (especially after you build the Hanging Gardens), otherwise go straight to Republic. I usually try to become a republic by 300 AD.
A revolution will create chaos in your cities and you will not produce anything for quite a few turns. Due to this, you should never begin a revolution during wartime or while producing a very necessary wonder. You will lose precious time.
SOME GENERAL TIPS
Use shields wisely when producing units
- If your city is producing 29 shields, and you want to build a unit that uses 30 shields, don't build it in that city unless necessary. The unit will take 2 turns to build and you will lose 28 shields in the second turn. Try building this unit in a city that creates 15-20 shields, it will also be done in 2 turns, but less shields will be wasted.
Build improvements only when necessary
- If your city is producing 2 wealth and 6 science, build a library, not a marketplace, a marketplace would be a great waste. Likewise, if your city is producing 10 wealth and 3 science, build a marketplace, not a library. Use this logic for all improvements in all cities.
Try not to trigger your Golden Age too early into the game when you have only a few cities.
Good luck!
Please note:
If you are new to civ3, have skimmed the games civilopedia, and would like some strategy tips, this may be of help to you.
Civ3 is a very complex game that can be played in infinite ways. The following tactics may work for some of you, but this is merely one way to play the game.
This strategy takes you from 4000BC to about 300AD.
Choosing your game terrain
Initially, choose a small map. To get used to the game, chose pangaea. This avoids you being isolated on some island in the corner of the map. Also, wonders you build will often only affect cities on continent, so in a Pangaea all your cities receive full effects of all your wonders.
Barbarians are good because they give your units fighting experience, and disbanding their encampments gives you gold. Anything above roaming will create quite aggressive barbarians, so be prepared.
Choosing your Tribe
There are many tribes, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
To get a good start to the game, I suggest using an expansionist civilization. Expansionistic civilizations will produce a scout that can move 2 squares per turn, and they are ALWAYS well received by villages that they discover.
If you initially produce a handful of scouts and go search, you will end up with more civilization advances than any other tribe, but better yet, you almost always encounter a friendly settler who wants to join your despotism. This means you start the game with two cities instead of one, and if you find the friendly settler far away from your capital, this means that you can build your empire from two separate locations on the map. This second city is a brilliant location for the Forbidden Palace.
Another very good civilization trait is industrious. This means your workers work much faster than usually. This is especially helpful when you group 2 or more workers together. With just a handful of workers you can modify a citys entire radius in a very short time. This is especially useful when you capture a city or build a city near a jungle.
The tribe that is both industrious and expansionist are the Americans (note: I am not American). You can change your tribe settings to whatever you like (name, etc.), by clicking the field under the portrait of your leader.
STRATEGY AND TIPS
First moves and settings: establish your capital Your capital should be in a near-perfect location, move the settler around if you like, just not for too many turns. In my experience, the best has been if the capital is on a river (or adjacent to it), and surrounded by mostly grassland and hills. A river allows your city to grow beyond population of 6 without needing an aqueduct, and the plains produce lots of food AND shields (which the plains dont). Hills (or mountains) are essential for speed when building wonders early in the game (unless your city is surrounded by game or other high shield producing terrain).
It is also very important to have some sort of luxury (spice etc.) somewhere near (though not necessarily inside your capital citys radius-it can be a little farther) to keep your population happy.
Rivers are also great because you can follow the river and build cities along it, without ever needing to build aqueducts for your cities.
- Build your capital city
- Start building a scout
- Go to your game preferences and SELECT always start building previously built unit and DESELECT capital governor default for new cities. For faster game play, turn off animations. Close preferences
- Contact the governor. Tell governor to manage the citizen mood, and emphasize food and commerce. SELECT default for new cities. (The governor is very complex, I will not go into more details, play around with it until it suits your needs and check more on this site.)
- Contact the city advisor (F1) and set your science funding to 100%
Expanding from your capital - Build 3 or 4 scouts and send them out searching.
- Build a warrior
- Build a granary
- Build a Spearman
- Build one more spearman and send it to the place where you want your second city
- Build a settler and send it to that location. Build your second city.
In all, build 3 new cities (i.e. spearman & settler combinations) from your capital, then build a temple in your capital.
You may now want to build more military units, perhaps a worker or two, but you should now start work on The Pyramids. When the wonder has been built, build settlers or workers.
Once your capital hits a population of 3 or more, you have to contact the city advisor and set the luxuries somewhere between 10%-30% (Build a road to luxuries in your city radius to increase the happy population. Adjust the science funding accordingly. Try to always maintain economic growth unless you need to hurry a science advance.
Start work on your other cities Initially, if your new city will grow in the same number of turns it takes to build a worker, build a worker straight away. Otherwise build a warrior and then a worker.
Try to build the cities surrounding your capital. Cities close to the capital have less waste and corruption than cities further away. Try to build one city that will produce many shields. If close to water, build one coastal city.
Try not to build cities in an area surrounded by plains and without a fresh water source, otherwise irrigation is very difficult.
Building cities close to the enemy will often provoke them.
If your city is in plains with forests and few mountains or hills, KEEP THE FORESTS as they are good sources for shields throughout the game. If your city is among grasslands, clear the forests quickly using the workers. When your city is small, clearing the forests add 10 shields to build your improvements, which is helpful.
While your capital is busy building a wonder, these cities now take over:
- New cities should be protected, have a worker and try to connect it to the capital as soon as the terrain has been modified
- Always build a temple in new cities straight away. Temples expand your city radius very quickly.
- Cities that produce many shields should now be used to build up your army. Build a barracks then lots of spearmen, then lots of Swordmen and some Horsemen, put defensive and offensive units in all cities.
- Cities that produce much food should be used to produce workers and settlers
- Always link your cities together with roads
- As soon as your game is going well and you have many cities, start building another wonder in a second city or again in the capital
Hurrying production under despotism
Under despotism, hurrying production will cost citizen lives. This may not seem like a politically correct thing to do to your citizens, but it is "worth it" in many cases:
- if your city has reached "6" and cannot grow
- has many unhappy inhabitants and is filled with entertainers
- corruption is eating over half of your shields/commerce
- it is wartime and you quickly need units
DiplomacyWhen you first meet a tribe, check if the tribe you are talking to has a worker to offer. If they do, GET IT. An extra worker is always good.
General tip: Whatever it is another tribe wants from you, DELETE whatever THEY are offering you, then click on What would you offer me for (whatever they want) Usually they will offer you more now than they did in their initial bargain.
If a tribe threatens you initially and you have little troops, give them what they want. It will save you a lot of trouble trying to defend your cities with little troops.
Warfare If a tribe declares war on you, this usually (though not always) means that they have a lot of troops, and will now concentrate its production on building military units. Do not go out to fight them. Let them enter your territory (here they move slower) and then attack them. Do not go out and attack until you have beaten back their initial attack and destroyed their units.
I dont advise you to go to war until you have swordsmen and a handful of horses. Keep swordsmen in all your peripheral cities. Keep horses in the central cities. In case of war move them to the periphery. Just to be safe, you may want to put up your luxuries budget by 10%.
If a tribe declares war on you, and you are unprepared, make another tribe declare war on the tribe that just attacked you (you must establish an embassy with that tribe first). You can wait until the tribes units are at your, gates, then make a nearby tribe declare war on them, and you will see half the units retreat to go fight on another front. If you make many tribes declare war on one tribe, you may soon see that tribe destroyed.
Fighting tips
- Try to always move the units in groups of attack AND defense. For example, move towards an enemy city with 2 pikemen and 3 swordsmen in the same square. Better yet is to move defensive units to the enemy city first and fortifying them in front of the city before moving the attackers onto the same square
- Always attack from rough terrain. Don't forget that attacking or defending from hills or jungle etc. is more effective than from a plain.
- Build barracks in cities on the battlefront so that your units heal faster
- If you are producing military units in virtually all your cities during a massive enemy attack, create faster moving units (horses etc.) FAR AWAY from the battle-front, as they can move faster TO the front, create defensive ones CLOSE to the battle front, as they take longer to move and are needed on the front straight away.
- If the enemy refuses to make peace, take a handful strong defensive units (pikemen or the like), enter their territory, and PILLAGE their roads and improvements. This works wonders.
Captured cities need many troops and a temple (maybe you can hurrying the temple production (especially under despotism) is usually a good idea. Do not try to capture too many foreign cities at once as captured cities take a long time to become friendly to the new tribe, and a lot of new cities can be a pain to control.
Government You may want to become a monarchy (especially after you build the Hanging Gardens), otherwise go straight to Republic. I usually try to become a republic by 300 AD.
A revolution will create chaos in your cities and you will not produce anything for quite a few turns. Due to this, you should never begin a revolution during wartime or while producing a very necessary wonder. You will lose precious time.
SOME GENERAL TIPS
Use shields wisely when producing units
- If your city is producing 29 shields, and you want to build a unit that uses 30 shields, don't build it in that city unless necessary. The unit will take 2 turns to build and you will lose 28 shields in the second turn. Try building this unit in a city that creates 15-20 shields, it will also be done in 2 turns, but less shields will be wasted.
Build improvements only when necessary
- If your city is producing 2 wealth and 6 science, build a library, not a marketplace, a marketplace would be a great waste. Likewise, if your city is producing 10 wealth and 3 science, build a marketplace, not a library. Use this logic for all improvements in all cities.
Try not to trigger your Golden Age too early into the game when you have only a few cities.
Good luck!
