How to win. A short guide.

[eyrei]

I just don't see the fun in playing like this. Maybe I just have an overactive imagination, but I try to play civ3 like I am actually trying to run an empire. An empire that did nothing but conscript people to fight in the army would begin to collapse very quickly from the inside out. I realize the game is not entirely realistic, but one can make it more realistic by not playing like this. This sort of gameplay sounds like RISK with different types of terrain.

 

[Minmaster]

WTH, ur playing on tiny maps and think this strategy will work on standard and larger maps? ur dreaming. tiny is not even a challenge.

ur topic title should've been "how to win on tiny map" or something.

 

[Ionhead]

Ari, tiny maps are boring. You think that large is big. Even huge is only just big enough for me. You will have a real war on your hand if you fight in the modern era. I agree that the enemy AI is weak militarily, but on a huge map with, say, 6 opponents on deity, by the time you meet them (using any tactic you like) there's no way you can win just by churning out endless immortals. You're missing half the game your way.

If you like to set yourself goals to win by - then why not set yourself the goal of winning with a cultural vistory with the highest score possible. Then you might be able to win AND enjoy.

 

[brody]

Originally posted by CivAl
I'm not against conquering wonders. Often when I don't get a critical (or even good) wonder I'll mark down its city, and if I ever go to war with that civ, then I know where the wonder is if it's feasible to conquer it.

I'm just against stuff like:

"And the point here was to WIN, not to ENJOY."

"1. Always play Deity, after you've learned the game. The challenge is low anyway. "

"Easy, isn't it? "

coming from the same author as:

"Winning is the challenging, fun part of the game. "

I mean, isn't that slightly hypocritical?

"Again, if winning is the challenging, fun part of the game, why set up games so that winning is easy? "

Couldn't agree more. I would play Huge maps except it kills my computer. It must be pretty fun, though.

Funny, I am also among the "strange" people who like to enjoy the game, not find exploits to win the fastest way possible. What's more is I believe in waging war only if all other options fail. The game is much more interesting if you try to actually be the best civ, not just kill everybody!

And I am playing a huge map right now with my little 450MHz computer... I tell ya, the 3+ minute wait between turns is killing me... and I'm only at 1350 AD!! Yes, next time it will be a smaller map.

 

[brody]

Originally posted by Ari
After I installed patch, it became harder to trade cities, but it is still possible.

And the point here was to WIN, not to ENJOY.

now this is truly funny... your first post says, right at the top of the page, "There are few simple rules to obey to really enjoy the game. I think."

I didn't even notice how contradictory you are until just now... how funny.

 

[Terminal Strike]

why did I waste my time reading this article, no less now I am even responding too it. If your goal is to win a conquest so early in the game, why are you playing this game in the first place? I fail to see the point or the fun of what you have written here. As far as strategies are concerned this one sucks, find a different thread.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I build better than any of you. Anyone can build. Winning is the challenging, fun part of the game.

I will play large perhaps the next. I just don't like that much moving around, it's boring. But I still believe the DID principle will bring victory.

I would pay to see anyone try this strategy on a Huge pangea map with 16 civs on Deity. Yes, there are people who beat deity on a huge pangea map, but certainly not this way. By the time you get your units to your neighbors territory, your units will practically be obsolete and you can bet the Romans WILL have Iron connected to their cities by then (if they have any). And it certainly will take more than one city with no improvements!

 

[David In Asia]

hi all

Possibly the least fun approach to the game I've encountered.

i've only played two games so far, and even i can see that this is true. in one breath ari says this is a formulae for just winning the game, yet in another he says

....to really enjoy the game....

also:

I build better than any of you

i don't know if ari means us or the AI........ enough said.

cheers
d

 

[Irish Caesar]

Early conquest is interesting, but the replay value is not there when you destroy enemies right away. It is fun when you fight against a big civilization and modern technology, but sometimes you don't even need to have war and still play a fun game.

 

[ABX]

I don't know why do you have to whine about this strategy.
This strategy is very good for a specific situation (what you have correctly pointed out) but you can hardly use it in a more standard game enviroment.

And besides who are you to judge what fun is for someone else.

The most interesting post was about the multiplayer strategy. For now we can only assume what it may look like, but anyhow we still looking forward to find the perfect one.

And please include the difficult level for which the tactic is good for.

 

[Mapache]

When playin tiny map Deity conquest you don't even think of Wonders. I look for the other ~8 cities and destroy them. Which Wonder could be helpful? Every conquered city produces more Jaguar Warriors so I usually don't raze. I try to build a Barracks.

 

[kcheung]

Put it this way -- this strategy only works when you are allowed to win by domination victory or conquest victory. If these 2 victories are prohibited, it's uselss.

 

[CivAl]

If you asked for a random civ, with a random terrain type, size, etc, how often do you think this strategy could win? It certainly would not work very well on anything but Pangea, because you would need (hopefully) Map Making or (more likely) Navigation. On maps Standard or Larger, it takes too much time, and the other civs have better units and will whip you easily. Just taking those two factors into account, that's less than a 30% chance of getting the right setup to use this strategy.

 

[kcheung]

Yes, let's say there're 2 big continents separated by 2 oceans (Huge Map.) You are on 1 continents with 2 opponents. By the time you clear your continents and spending your time fighting instead of climbing the tech tree, the 2 civilizations on the other continents probably develop flight already and you may still be on Galley. You can't travel to them, but they can hit you. How can you win?

Keep in mind that when you are engaging war to your continental opponents, you drag their tech advanced down also, so at the end, you might not be able to learn much from them even if you ask for trades.

 

[kcheung]

Oh, one more thing, what if you don't have iron around -- first of all, you won't see them until you learn Iron working, how could you possibly know whether your city has iron around. Are you going to fight with warriors?

 

[Cabal]

After reading this thread yesterday, I went home last night and tried just what Ari described: Tiny map, 3 other Civs, with me as the Persians. And I gotta say, his strategy worked exactly as he described. Iron cropped up right on schedule, and my Immortals (combined with Knights a little later on) went through the opposing forces like butter. In succession, I eliminated the Americans, the Germans, and the Japanese and scored a Conquest victory in the mid 1400's.

Is it a limited strategy? Certainly. My one stab at it revealed that even on a Tiny world, wars of aggression are tough to sustain; the amount of troop movement necessary is burdensome, and it's a delicate balancing act to make sure you're hitting the right place at the right time. And even in a game where my sole purpose was supposed to be to find other cultures and kill them, I still found myself building Wonders and sending out settlers, just for the sake of variety! I don't think I could play a solely military game of Civ (besides, I have Starcraft for that! )

Still, I admit that it was a nasty thrill to be an unabashed warmonger, especially when I got to watch my Army unit (3 Immortals) take three enemy cities in as many turns...

This little experiment revealed something else: In case you weren't sure, the scoring system definitely doesn't reward purely peaceful development! Through most of the game, my score was in the high 80's to low 90's, with the other Civs somewhere in the 50's. Once the game awarded me my Conquest vic, though, it showed my final score as being almost 900 points! If I'd simply blockaded the last Japanese city to prevent growth or escape, and then concentrated on building culture, science, and settling open territory, I wonder how much higher the score might have been.

I don't think I'll play many games this way, but it was an interesting change of pace!

 

[Grey Fox]

What do you mean by high 80's and low 90's???

and is 900 a high score for you?

Then you must be playing on chieftain level.

For everybody out there still playing the Game on Chieftain diff, please try a harder diff. (You are cheating against the comp on Chieftain and Warlord...)

 

[Cabal]

What do you mean by high 80's and low 90's???

Just what I said. Less than three digits.

and is 900 a high score for you?

By no means. I regularly score well into the thousands. But from not-quite-cracking-100 to 900 in one end-of-game jump was pretty startling! At least to me, because I don't go for Conquest victories; I'd never seen such a massive leap in score before.

Then you must be playing on chieftain level.

Indeed I was. As I said, I typically don't play Conquest (I'm much more of a builder), and the above-described game was an experiment; consequently I wanted it over with in a few hours. Higher difficulty levels like Monarch are for games where I want to get involved...

For everybody out there still playing the Game on Chieftain diff, please try a harder diff. (You are cheating against the comp on Chieftain and Warlord...)

Now, now, don't be a snob. The lower diff levels were put into the game for a reason. Sure, it's a good deal more challenging winning on Emperor than on Chieftain, but it boils down to what you enjoy. If someone never plays anything other than Chieftain because they have the most fun that way, that's fine. We can feel superior because we prefer harder games if we wish to, but we shouldn't imply that Chieftain players are somehow doing something wrong (besides, given the plethora of hacking options out there, difficulty levels are the least of it when it comes to "cheating")...

 

[Grey Fox]

I have a freind that is still stuck on Chieftain level, he has played 20-30 games and he is still playing on chieftain and he has never lost.

My suggestion is only that everyone should TRY to play a harder diff, and if you think it's to hard, play again. You learn more from your losses then your wins.

 

[Ari]

Back after a long time away... The goal and the fun comes from winning.

I have scored 19335 points in tiny map, see HOF.

On large map I played iroquois and scored 10777. Unfortunately that doesn't go to HOF, because it's started with the old version, so I could trade the cities, and I think it would be unfair.

Maybe I'll still play someday a highscore.