Civilization III Advanced Tips

[Kurgan117]

I am irrigating tiles in "useless cities" so that they will switch to civil engineers whose shields aren't affected by corruption.
When I say "I'm losing", that really means that I haven't wiped them off the face of the continent.
If any of you all have played the Civ III Conquest scenarios and have a strategy that worked for you, and you would like to share the strategy, then please sea my discussion, "Civ3 Conquests Civilization III Scenario Strategies."

 

[Kurgan117]

All right, all governors have been executed (they were starving the people anyway).
Where do you suggest I build the Forbidden Palace?

 

[justanick]

Where do you suggest I build the Forbidden Palace?

Generally speaking it is much more important when you build the Forbidden Palace than where you build it. Similar applies here. Dallas would have been a good place for the FP 200 turns ago. It actually still is, but there are other alternative. The point however is that the place does not matter much any more.

This game can be won quickly if you want. Go into mobilization to boost military production. Spam out cavaly. 10 turns later your military will be vastly suprior. Use it to conquer the world.

Then take a shot at emperor and play with more attention to detail. It is the first 150 turns that matter most. What you do wrong or right early on will pay back with interests and interests on interests.

 

[Kurgan117]

I want to win space race victory this time. I've only won it once before and I never got to see the video.

 

[walletta]

Cities in ICS? I am not familiar with most abbreviations used here.

A rare instance where I actually know the answer. ICS = Infinite City Sprawl. It's a stratagem for managing a seriously large empire in which one tries to extract the maximum value from far away towns. As I understand it the technique involves planting cities thus CxCxCxC where C = a town and x equals an empty land tile. Thus the cities are huddled up close together and then, if I further understand it, you set one citizen to produce uncorrupted science or cash and the other for food. Something like that anyway. I have never had an empire anything like large enough to exploit this ruse, which is for use at genius level I think.

 

[walletta]

Why do the Carthaginians have a city named lol?

Why do they Uzbekis have one called WTF? (I just made that up)

 

[Kurgan117]

That isn't even funny

 

[justanick]

A rare instance where I actually know the answer. ICS = Infinite City Sprawl. It's a stratagem for managing a seriously large empire in which one tries to extract the maximum value from far away towns.

I would like to mention that with the availability of police station and hospitals ICS is no longer the method to extract the maximum value out of a given amount of space. In regions with medium or even low corruption it never is either.

 

[Lord AJ]

I would like to mention that with the availability of police station and hospitals ICS is no longer the method to extract the maximum value out of a given amount of space. In regions with medium or even low corruption it never is either.

Of course in medium to low corruption regions it's much more advantageous to use courthouses and police stations bit in max corrupt cities there's not much you can do. Especially because the benefit from reduced corruption is so meager that in most <size 12 cities it leaves us with only one or two extra cash after deducting the maintenance for the courthouses and police station.
In ICS, we get many benefits : 1.specialists can be made to get Shields, cash or science as and when needed.
2. The most important differentiating factor though is the unit support you get for each town which helps in paying maintenance for the army which is a nice way to maintain positive cash flow.
Plus, a town will need time to turn into a metropolis, especially because the outlier towns are generally below size 12 because of them being resettled after razing AI cities when sanitation appears.

 

[Buttercup]

I want to win space race victory this time. I've only won it once before and I never got to see the video.

Just play defensively.

Build enough units to adequately defend a possible attack. If someone attacks then offer one of your techs to other civs to attack that civ that attacked you. If one civ seems to be getting too big to counter by this method then actually join in the attack and shaft their capital and major cities, otherwise just sit back and kill ones that venture into your area. As long as your science produces tech quicker than your closest rival you will eventually win a Space Race. This is less gaming advice and more basic common sense really.

As for how much army you need to play defensively, nothing will teach you better for your specific preferred scenarios than... experience.

 

[justanick]

Of course in medium to low corruption regions it's much more advantageous to use courthouses and police stations bit in max corrupt cities there's not much you can do.

I think that this formulation is slightly too harsh. Courthouses and police stations reduce maximum corruption from 90% to 80% and 70%. So at least 30% will not be corrupt. A metropolis using 16 tiles giving 2.5 base commerce on average will give 12 base commerce after corruption which can be 30 gtp after multiplier buildings. That comes on top of what can still be extracted by specialists.

Between medium coruption and true max corruption there are the cases of high and very high corruption in the semi-periphery. That is where the effect of courthouses and policestations is maximal. Depending on many details corruption there can be reduced from 90% to 40%. That is much more than courthouses can do in the core.

2. The most important differentiating factor though is the unit support you get for each town which helps in paying maintenance for the army which is a nice way to maintain positive cash flow.

Both in republic and facism cities and metropolises give much greater free unit support than towns. So i doubt that free unit support is an argument supporting many small towns. The costs of building and maintaining buildings however tends to be a strong argument in favour of metropolises.

Plus, a town will need time to turn into a metropolis, especially because the outlier towns are generally below size 12 because of them being resettled after razing AI cities when sanitation appears.

The high costs of making corrupt metroplises profitable is the strongest argument against that strategy. Depending on how one calculates it may take 200 turns to get the investment back. By then one might aswell be in alpha centauri.

 

[Lord AJ]

Buttercup is correct. At this point the game is already won. All you need to do now is get some infantry and station them in type outermost ring. Simply keep learning techs and then build the spaceship parts in your highest production towns. You'll have the Spaceship Victory.

 

[Lord AJ]

I think that this formulation is slightly too harsh. Courthouses and police stations reduce maximum corruption from 90% to 80% and 70%. So at least 30% will not be corrupt. A metropolis using 16 tiles giving 2.5 base commerce on average will give 12 base commerce after corruption which can be 30 gtp after multiplier buildings. That comes on top of what can still be extracted by specialists.

Between medium coruption and true max corruption there are the cases of high and very high corruption in the semi-periphery. That is where the effect of courthouses and policestations is maximal. Depending on many details corruption there can be reduced from 90% to 40%. That is much more than courthouses can do in the core.



Both in republic and facism cities and metropolises give much greater free unit support than towns. So i doubt that free unit support is an argument supporting many small towns. The costs of building and maintaining buildings however tends to be a strong argument in favour of metropolises.

From 90% to 40. I never thought there could be such a huge advantage. Are you sure of this.
As for unit support the thing is, by the time you get your cities to size 12 and above your war might already be done. On the other hand smaller towns can be planted in any location, planting tens of towns in one turn giving immediate relaxation to the military cost. Also since a player tends to have max military right before a war it is at this time that unit support is needed the most. Often the losses in the war are sufficient to get the military down to "affordable" numbers.

 

[justanick]

From 90% to 40. I never thought there could be such a huge advantage. Are you sure of this.

Well, the magnitude seems about right. But for the fun of it let's check the math.

Let's assume 90% is due to 70% rank corruption and 20% distance corruption on a small map playing the commercial iroquous in monarchy on Sid. 20% distance corruption means a distance of 8 to the nearest palace, which would be the already built forbidden palace. A city with rank 17 will have a rank corruption of 73.08%, so that totals to 93.08% corruption in total, but maximum corruption of 90% applies.

Now add the courthouse. Than it is 10% distance corruption and 47.06% rank corruption. That totals to 57.06% corruption which is well below maximum corruption of 80%.

Now add the police station. Than it is 5% distance corruption and 38.10% rank corruption. That totals to 43.10% corruption. It seem that 90% to 40% was slightly too optimistic. But losing 30 percentage points per step is possible.

Often the losses in the war are sufficient to get the military down to "affordable" numbers.

True, and if that does not suffice one can still disband units in freshly conquered cities in order to rush settlers.

As for unit support the thing is, by the time you get your cities to size 12 and above your war might already be done.

Maybe, maybe not. That depends too much on circumstances to give general advise. I tend to favour short decisive wars that have been prepared for a long time. That increases the chances that building up the more corrupt cities is reasonable.

 

[Lord AJ]

The math seems right. I was never good in this department. But yes it looks like a nice slice can be cut off from corruption. But you assume distance to be 8, which is quite less than the actual distance in a larger map and a scenario where I recommend using ics - in enemy lands and on other continents and Islands which are too far away from the palace to be worth anything more than 10 percent actual output.
The rest of what you say, I find quite acceptable.

 

[justanick]

But you assume distance to be 8, which is quite less than the actual distance in a larger map and a scenario where I recommend using ics

I only assume distance corruption to be 20% to start with. At a huge map that equals a distance of 16 to the forbiddden palace and even more to the capital. So in terms of pure distance we would then be talking about the fifth ring or so. For rank corruption to match aswell those would need to be incomple rings as one might expect on archipel or similar.

 

[Kurgan117]

I need some serious help. Mongols attacked me, I've lost cities, cities are revolting and not building a military is biting me in the %#%@.:mad
I finally have an attacking force on the mongols territory near one of my cities that was taken. What do the veterans say I should do?

For new games I think I will stick with Regent until I can beat it soundly. I am reading the War Academy.(Not as fast as I would like) What do you suggest for AI aggression level in the future? I think I had it maxed out this game which was another(I know, again) big mistake for my game play style on Regent in archipelago.

Here is the save file.

 

[justanick]

It is my impression that your main flaw is that you desperately try to avoid winning. What you need to do is to simply build military. Go into mobilization and your production will exceed 500 shields per turn. That is 111 infantry in 20 turns.

It might be worth to note that the weak military of the democracy of mongolia is "beating" you because you donnot deploy your troops, that are way superior already.

EDIT: Here is the current powergraph.

For new games I think I will stick with Regent until I can beat it soundly.

I very much disagree. That way you simply risk to continue to waste opportunities and like by continuing this game you "procreate" the mistakes of the past. Had you gone into mobilization when you had the technological advantage of having cavs while the best enemy defenders were musketmen this game would have been won long ago. By granting your enemies the opportunity to catch up in critical tech and thereby to defend with riflemen you have increased your losses a lot, therefore you suffer now 50% war weariness which neutralizes most advantages of being a republic.

For successful warfare you need to keep the intiate. You have the economic and technological means to create a military that is strong enough the very easily keep the initiative. Donnot grant your enemy a chance to attack you, kill them before they can.

What do you suggest for AI aggression level in the future?

It does not matter that much. I would keep it at standard level. Much more important are map size and difficulty level. By decreazing the map size to small or tiny your empire will be much easier to manage properly. You should really try emperor but play in a concentrated and military-conscious way. Your intended way of winning should be domination. It is the most natural way of winning in C3C. If you donnot want to win that way you can still stop your military advancements once you controll about 60% of the world area and go for space victory instead. But i would note advise for that. First you should master a difficulty setting by winning via domination. After that you may have gotten a feeling of how the game works and you can try more extravagant ways to play the game like space victory, cultural victory or space race.

 

[Immortal7777]

When I first tried regeant I was fighting for my life and everyone wanted me dead. It wasn't like chieften where only Zululand would back up their threats so I changed my play style to a warlike one. Switching governments would be detrimental so the first thing I did was go for iron working as soon as possible. Secure a source of iron then kill everyone before they can get the jump on you. I know despotism has a lot of corruption but it's cheaper and makes it easier to run a huge army constantly at war with no war weariness. After securing my civ and taking out the close ones That's when you can probably slack off and focus on culture or new governments. I usually don't though.

 

[walletta]

When I first tried regeant I was fighting for my life and everyone wanted me dead. It wasn't like chieften where only Zululand would back up their threats so I changed my play style to a warlike one. Switching governments would be detrimental so the first thing I did was go for iron working as soon as possible. Secure a source of iron then kill everyone before they can get the jump on you. I know despotism has a lot of corruption but it's cheaper and makes it easier to run a huge army constantly at war with no war weariness. After securing my civ and taking out the close ones That's when you can probably slack off and focus on culture or new governments. I usually don't though.

The wise ones here will tell you that getting out of despotism as fast as possible is one of the primary aims of the ancient era. It will be difficult to progress very far up the chain of difficulty levels as a despot. Your economy is hobbled. The thing which, in the long run, gives you the edge over your rivals enabling you to out produce them, efficiently building improvements and/or military units, will not be available to you.